OYSTER: TLOXTLOX

One of the now rare species of oysters in the Pacific Northwest is the Olympia oyster, Ostrea lurida, (Carpenter, 1864).  

While rare today, these are British Columbia’s only native oyster. Had you been dining on their brethren in the 1800s or earlier, it would have been this species you were consuming. Middens from Port Hardy to California are built from Ostrea lurida.

These wonderful invertebrates bare their souls with every bite. Have they lived in cold water, deep beneath the sea away from the suns rays and heat? Are they the rough and tumbled beach denizens whose thick shells have formed to withstand the pounding of the sea? 

Is the oyster in your mouth thin and slimy having just done the nasty spurred by the warming waters of Spring? Is this oyster a local or was it shipped to your current local and if asked would greet you with "Kon'nichiwa?" Not if the beauty on your plate is indeed Ostrea lurida. 

We have been cultivating, indeed maximizing the influx of invasive species to the cold waters of the Salish Sea. But in the wild waters off the coast of British Columbia is the last natural abundant habitat of the tasty Ostrea lurida in the pristine waters of  Nootka Sound. The area is home to the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations who have consumed this species boiled or steamed for thousands of years. Here these ancient oysters not only survive but thrive — building reefs and providing habitat for crab, anemones and small marine animals. 

Oysters are in the family Ostreidae — the true oysters. Their lineage evolved in the Early Triassic — 251 - 247 million years ago. 

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, an oyster is known as t̕łox̱t̕łox̱. I am curious to learn if any of the Nuu-chah-nulth have a different word for an oyster. If you happen to know, I would be grateful to learn.

HOLCOPHYLLOCERAS

Amazing suturing on this lovely ammonite, Holcophylloceras mediterraneum, (Neumayr 1871) from Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) deposits near Sokoja, Madagasgar.

The shells had many chambers divided by walls called septa. The chambers were connected by a tube called a siphuncle which allowed for the control of buoyancy with the hollow inner chambers of the shell acting as air tanks to help them float.

They were a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids — octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) then they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species.

We can see the edges of this specimen's shell where it would have continued out to the last chamber, the body-chamber, where the ammonite lived. Picture a squid or octopus, now add a shell and a ton of water. That's him!

AMMONITES OF THE CAUCAUS MOUNTAINS

A very pleasing example of the Ammonite Acanthohoplites bigoureti (Seunes, 1887). Lower Cretaceous, Upper Aptian, from a riverbed concretion, Kurdzhips River, North Caucasus Mountains, Republic of Adygea, Russia. 

Geologically, the Caucasus Mountains belong to a system that extends from southeastern Europe into Asia and is considered a border between them. The Greater Caucasus Mountains are mainly composed of Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks with the Paleozoic and Precambrian rocks in the higher regions. 

Some volcanic formations are found throughout the range. On the other hand, the Lesser Caucasus Mountains are formed predominantly of the Paleogene rocks with a much smaller portion of the Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks. 

The evolution of the Caucasus began from the Late Triassic to the Late Jurassic during the Cimmerian orogeny at the active margin of the Tethys Ocean while the uplift of the Greater Caucasus is dated to the Miocene during the Alpine orogeny.

The Caucasus Mountains formed largely as the result of a tectonic plate collision between the Arabian plate moving northwards with respect to the Eurasian plate. As the Tethys Sea was closed and the Arabian Plate collided with the Iranian Plate and was pushed against it and with the clockwise movement of the Eurasian Plate towards the Iranian Plate and their final collision, the Iranian Plate was pressed against the Eurasian Plate. 

As this happened, the entire rocks that had been deposited in this basin from the Jurassic to the Miocene were folded to form the Greater Caucasus Mountains. This collision also caused the uplift and the Cenozoic volcanic activity in the Lesser Caucasus Mountains.

The preservation of this Russian specimen is outstanding. Acanthohoplites bigoureti are also found in Madagascar, Mozambique, in the Rhone-Alps of France and the Western High Atlas Mountains and near Marrakech in Morocco. This specimen measures 55mm and is in the collection of the deeply awesome Emil Black.

ANCIENT OCTOPUS: KEUPPIA

A sweet as you please example of Keuppia levante (Fuchs, Bracchi & Weis, 2009), an extinct genus of octopus that swam our ancient seas back in the Cretaceous. 

The dark black and brown area you see here is his ink sac which has been preserved for a remarkable 95 million years.

This cutie is in the family Palaeoctopodidae, and one of the earliest representatives of the order Octopoda — and perhaps my favourite fossil. It was this perfect specimen that inspired the logo for the Fossil Huntress brand.  

These ancient marine beauties are in the class Cephalopoda making them relatives of our modern octopus, squid and cuttlefish.

There are two species of Keuppia, Keuppia hyperbolaris and Keuppia levante, both of which we find as fossils. We find their remains, along with those of the genus Styletoctopus, in Cretaceous-age Hâqel and Hjoula localities in Lebanon. 

For many years, Palaeoctopus newboldi (Woodward, 1896) from the Santonian limestones at Sâhel Aalma, Lebanon, was the only known pre‐Cenozoic coleoid cephalopod believed to have an unambiguous stem‐lineage representative of Octobrachia fioroni. 

With the unearthing of some extraordinary specimens with exquisite soft‐part preservation in the Lebanon limestones, our understanding of ancient octopus morphology has blossomed. The specimens are from the sub‐lithographical limestones of Hâqel and Hâdjoula, in northwestern Lebanon. These localities are about 15 km apart, 45 km away from Beirut and 15 km away from the coastal city of Jbail. Fuchs et al. put a nice little map in their 2009 paper that I've included and referenced here.

Palaeoctopus newboldi had a spherical mantle sac, a head‐mantle fusion, eight equal arms armed with suckers, an ink sac, a medially isolated shell vestige, and a pair of (sub‐) terminal fins. The bipartite shell vestige suggests that Palaeoctopus belongs to the octopod stem‐lineage, as the sister taxon of the Octopoda, the Cirroctopoda, is characterized by an unpaired clasp‐like shell vestige (Engeser 1988; Haas 2002; Bizikov 2004).

It is from the comparisons of Canadian fauna combined with those from Lebanon and Japan that things really started to get interesting with Octobrachia. Working with fossil specimens from the Campanian of Canada, Fuchs et al. (2007a ) published on the first record of an unpaired, saddle‐shaped shell vestige that might have belonged to a cirroctopod. 

Again from the Santonian–Campanian of Canada and Japan, Tanabe et al. (2008) reported on at least four different jaw morphotypes. Two of them — Paleocirroteuthis haggarti (Tanabe et al., 2008) and Paleocirroteuthis Pacifica  (Tanabe et al ., 2008) — have been interpreted as being of cirroctopod type, one of octopod type, and one of uncertain octobrachiate type. 

Interestingly Fuchs et al. have gone on to describe the second species of Palaeoctopus, the Turonian Palaeoctopus pelagicus from limestones at Vallecillo, Mexico. While more of this fauna will likely be recovered in time, their work is based solely on a medially isolated shell vestige.

Five new specimens have been found in the well-known Upper Cenomanian limestones at Hâqel and Hâdjoula in Lebanon that can be reliably placed within the Octopoda. Fuchs et al. described these exceptionally well‐preserved specimens and discuss their morphology in the context of phylogeny and evolution in their 2008 paper (2009 publishing) in the Palaeontology Association Journal, Volume 51, Issue 1.

The presence of a gladius vestige in this genus shows a transition from squid to octopus in which the inner shell has divided into two parts in early forms to eventually be reduced to lateralized stylets, as can be seen in Styletoctopus.

The adorable fellow you see here with his remarkable soft-bodied preservation and inks sack and beak clearly visible is Keuppia levante. He hails from Late Cretaceous (Upper Cenomanian) limestone deposits near Hâdjoula, northwestern Lebanon. The vampyropod coleoid, Glyphiteuthis abisaadiorum n. sp. is also found at this locality. This specimen is about 5 cm long.

Fuchs, D.; Bracchi, G.; Weis, R. (2009). "New octopods (Cephalopoda: Coleoidea) from the Late Cretaceous (Upper Cenomanian) of Hâkel and Hâdjoula, Lebanon". Palaeontology. 52: 65–81. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00828.x.

Photo one: Fossil Huntress. Figure Two: Topographic map of north‐western Lebanon with the outcrop area in the upper right-hand corner. Fuchs et al, 2009.  

SAN JUAN ISLANDS

The San Juan Islands Archipelago, a group of 175 named islands located in Washington State is in the heart of the Salish Sea, just north of Seattle.  

If all the exposed landmasses were counted at low tide, the number would rise to 700. 

Eighty-four of these islands are designated as National Wildlife Refuges and are mostly made up of Mesozoic bedrock.

People come to the San Juans from all over the world to enjoy the remote island lifestyle, to soak up the natural world, both in sights and sounds and to have the chance to be closer to what wild places can gift them.  

Hike or bike the trails and roads, watch both sea and terrestrial birds, spend time observing whales, seals, sea lions, dolphins or porpoises from a land or water base. Opportunities to experience and learn begin as you step onto the ferry or land at the marina or airport. Natural beauty abounds and where words might fail, the sights and sounds fill in the frame. 

There are only four ferries serving the islands. The islands were formed by massive geological events, mountains moving, land shifting, volcanos erupting and glacial ice carving.  The result produced the Salish Sea, a body of water encompassing: West in the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Pacific Ocean, North to the Georgia Strait and Canada and South to Puget Sound. 

They were formed by massive geological events, mountains moving, land shifting, volcanos erupting and glacial ice carving. The result produced the Salish Sea, a body of water encompassing: West in the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Pacific Ocean, North to the Georgia Strait and Canada and South to Puget Sound.

Reference:

Western Prince Whale & Wildlife Tours: https://orcawhalewatch.com/san-juan-islands/

BEARS: URSIDAE

Bears are one of my favourite mammals. Had they evolved in a slightly different way, we might well have chosen them as pets instead of the dogs so many of us have in our lives today. 

Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms or doglike carnivorans. 

Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern Hemisphere and partially in the Southern Hemisphere —  making a home in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

In the Kwak'wala language of the Kwakiutl First Nations of the Pacific Northwest — or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala — a grizzly bear is known as na̱n and the ornamental grizzly bear headdress worn by the comic Dluwalakha grizzly bear dancers in the Grizzly Bear Dance, Gaga̱lalał, is known as na̱ng̱a̱mł. A black bear is known as t̕ła'yi — I do not know the word for Polar Bear in Kwak'wala.

The relatives of our black and brown bears, a dog-bear, entered the fossil record about 20 million years ago. We have found polar bear bones that tell us more about when they split off in the lineage.

DNA from a 110,000–130,000-year-old polar bear fossil has been successfully sequenced. The genome, from a jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway, in 2004, indicates when polar bears, Ursus maritimus, diverged from their nearest common relative, the brown bear — Ursus arctos.

Because polar bears live on ice and their remains are unlikely to be buried in sediment and preserved, polar bear fossils are very rare. So the discovery of a jawbone and canine tooth — the entirety of the Svalbard find — is impressive. 

But far more important, is that when molecular biologist Charlotte Lindqvist, then at the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum and now at the University at Buffalo in New York, drilled into the jaw, she was able to collect intact mitochondrial DNA. Yes, a bit Jurassic Park-esque.

Mitochondria — organelles found in animal cells — have their own DNA and can replicate. And because there are many mitochondria per cell, mitochondrial DNA is easier to find in fossils than nuclear DNA. 

Lindqvist wondered whether this mitochondrial DNA could illuminate the evolutionary history of how and when polar bears diverged from brown bears. To find out, she worked with Stephan Schuster, a molecular biologist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, and a team of colleagues to sequence the genetic material she had collected and was successful.

It is the oldest mammalian mitochondrial genome yet sequenced — about twice the age of the oldest mammoth genome, which dates to around 65,000 years old. From Lindqvist's work, we learned that polar bears split off the lineage from brown bears about 150,000 years ago. They evolved rapidly in the Late Pleistocene, taking advantage of their hunting prowess to become the apex predators of the northern arctic region.

LIONS: THE BUSINESS OF BATTLE

Male lions run a harrowing, years-long gauntlet to reach adulthood. When they finally reach their prime, bloodshed is a foregone conclusion.

Lions were once the most globally widespread mammal species, with distinct populations in Africa, Eurasia, and America. 

The oldest fossil evidence of lions is just under 1.5 million years old. We do know that Panthera spelaea and Panthera leo had an ancestor almost two million years ago. 

This means there are half a million years' worth of lion evolution we have not yet found in the fossil record. And whether fossilized or modern, their lineage shows signs of battle and trial by fire all the way through.

I have seen many a Male lion sporting a lost eye or scratches across its face—souvenirs obtained in the heat of the hunt. 

When your face is the business end of your biological machinery, the focal point of the operation, the hardware responsible for countless annihilations, somewhere along the line it is gonna take a few hits. 

As it stands, male lions already have a much harder come up when compared to their female counterparts, who can stay with the pride they are born with indefinitely. 

Males get kicked out when they are between 12-18-months old, and are left to fend for themselves in the harsh African bushland. If they are lucky, they may be blessed with a brother or two from the same litter and be able to help form a coalition outside of their former pride. 

This provides a slight advantage over the lone male that gets forced out into the great unknown. In both scenarios, the road to adulthood is long and extremely hard. For the handful that do make it, they get to experience a redemption arc that only a seldom few may claim. 

Literally discarded by their former pride, years later they return to wreak havoc on the archetypical old guard. This is done out of necessity, of course, not to sate any retributive lust, but if some part of them was holding on to some vengeful baggage, you really couldn't blame them. 

ISAAC LAKE: BOWRON CIRCUIT

It is day four of our holiday, with two days driving up from Vancouver to Cache Creek, past the Eocene insect and plant site at McAbee, the well-bedded Permian limestone near Marble Canyon and onto Bowron Provincial Park, a geologic gem near the gold rush town of Barkerville.

The initial draw for me, given that collecting in a provincial park is forbidden and all collecting close at hand outside the park appears to amount to a handful of crushed crinoid bits and a few conodonts, was the gorgeous natural scenery and a broad range of species extant. 

It was also the proposition of padding the Bowron Canoe Circuit, a 149,207-hectare geologic wonderland, where a fortuitous combination of plate tectonics and glacial erosion have carved an unusual 116-kilometre near-continuous rectangular circuit of lakes, streams and rivers bound on all sides by snowcapped mountains. From all descriptions, something like heaven.

The east and south sides of the route are bound by the imposing white peaks of the Cariboo Mountains, the northern boundary of the Interior wet belt, rising up across the Rocky Mountain Trench, and the Isaac Formation, the oldest of seven formations that make up the Cariboo Group (Struik, 1988). 

Some 270 million-plus years ago, had one wanted to buy waterfront property in what is now British Columbia, you’d be looking somewhere between Prince George and the Alberta border. The rest of the province had yet to arrive but would be made up of over twenty major terranes from around the Pacific. The rock that would eventually become the Cariboo Mountains and form the lakes and valleys of Bowron was far out in the Pacific Ocean, down near the equator.

With tectonic shifting, these rocks drifted north-eastward, riding their continental plate, until they collided with and joined the Cordillera in what is now British Columbia. Continued pressure and volcanic activity helped create the tremendous slopes of the Cariboo Range we see today with repeated bouts of glaciation during the Pleistocene carving their final shape.

ATURIA: OLYMPIC PENINSULA NAUTILOID

Arturia angustata nautiloid, Clallam Formation, WA

This lovely Lower Miocene nautiloid is Aturia angustata collected on the foreshore near Clallam Bay, Olympic Peninsula, northwestern Washington. Aturia is an extinct genus of Paleocene to Miocene nautilids within Aturiidae, a monotypic family, established by Campman in 1857 for Aturia Bronn, 1838, and is included in the superfamily Nautilaceae in Kümmel 1964.

Aturia is characterized by a smooth, highly involute, discoidal shell with a complex suture and subdorsal siphuncle. The shell of Aturia is rounded ventrally and flattened laterally; the dorsum is deeply impressed. The suture is one of the most complex within Nautiloidea. It has a broad flattened ventral saddle, narrow pointed lateral lobes, broad rounded lateral saddles, broad lobes on the dorso-umbilical slopes, and a broad dorsal saddle divided by a deep, narrow median lobe. The siphuncle is moderate in size and located subdorsally in the adapical dorsal flexure of the septum. Based on the feeding and hunting behaviours of living nautiluses, Aturia most likely preyed upon small fish and crustaceans. 

I've found a few of these specimens along the beaches of Clallam Bay and nearby in a local clay quarry. I've also seen calcified beauties of this species collected from river sites within the Olympic Peninsula range.

AMMONITE LITHOGRAPHY

THE POETRY OF PALAEOBOTONY: METASEQUOIA

Autumn is a wonderful time to explore Vancouver. It is a riot of yellow, orange and green. The fallen debris you crunch through send up wafts of earthy smells that whisper of decomposition, the journey from leaf to soil.

It is a wonderful time to be out and about. I do love the mountain trails but must confess to loving our cultivated gardens for their colour and variety. 

We have some lovely native plants and trees and more than a few exotics at Vancouver's arboreal trifecta — Van Dusen, Queen E Park and UBC Botanical Gardens. One of those exotics, at least exotic to me, is the lovely conifer you see here is Metasequoia glyptostroboides — the dawn redwood. 

Of this long lineage, this is the sole surviving species in the genus Metasequoia and one of three species of conifers known as redwoods. Metasequoia are the smaller cousins of the mighty Giant Sequoia, the most massive trees on Earth. 

As a group, the redwoods are impressive trees and very long-lived. The President, an ancient Giant Sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum, and granddaddy to them all has lived for more than 3,200 years. While this tree is named The President, a worthy name, it doesn't really cover the magnitude of this giant by half.   

This tree was a wee seedling making its way in the soils of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California before we invented writing. It had reached full height before any of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, those remarkable constructions of classical antiquity, were even an inkling of our budding human achievements. And it has outlasted them all save the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest and last of those seven still standing, though the tree has faired better. Giza still stands but the majority of the limestone façade is long gone.

Aside from their good looks (which can really only get you so far), they are resistant to fire and insects through a combined effort of bark over a foot thick, a high tannin content and minimal resin, a genius of evolutionary design. 

While individual Metasequoia live a long time, as a genus they have lived far longer. 

Like Phoenix from the Ashes, the Cretaceous (K-Pg) extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs, ammonites and more than seventy-five percent of all species on the planet was their curtain call. The void left by that devastation saw the birth of this genus — and they have not changed all that much in the 65 million years since. Modern Metasequoia glyptostroboides looks pretty much identical to their late Cretaceous brethren.

Dawn Redwood Cones with scales paired in opposite rows

They are remarkably similar to and sometimes mistaken for Sequoia at first glance but are easily distinguishable if you look at their size (an obvious visual in a mature tree) or to their needles and cones in younger specimens. 

Metasequoia has paired needles that attach opposite to each other on the compound stem. Sequoia needles are offset and attached alternately. Think of the pattern as jumping versus walking with your two feet moving forward parallel to one another. 

Metasequoia needles are paired as if you were jumping forward, one print beside the other, while Sequoia needles have the one-in-front-of-the-other pattern of walking.

The seed-bearing cones of Metasequoia have a stalk at their base and the scales are arranged in paired opposite rows which you can see quite well in the visual above. Coast redwood cone scales are arranged in a spiral and lack a stalk at their base.

Although the least tall of the redwoods, it grows to an impressive sixty meters (200 feet) in height. It is sometimes called Shui-sa, or water fir by those who live in the secluded mountainous region of China where it was rediscovered.

Fossil Metasequoia, McAbee Fossil Beds

Metasequoia fossils are known from many areas in the Northern Hemisphere and were one of my first fossil finds as a teenager. 

And folk love naming them. More than twenty fossil species have been named over time —  some even identified as the genus Sequoia in error — but for all their collective efforts to beef up this genus there are just three species: Metasequoia foxii, Metasequoia milleri, and Metasequoia occidentalis.

During the Paleocene and Eocene, extensive forests of Metasequoia thrived as far north as Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island and sites on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada's far north around 80° N latitude.

We find lovely examples of Metasequoia occidentalis in the Eocene outcrops at McAbee near Cache Creek, British Columbia, Canada. I shared a photo here of one of those specimens. Once this piece dries out a bit, I will take a dental pick to it to reveal some of the teaser fossils peeking out.

The McAbee Fossil Beds are known for their incredible abundance, diversity and quality of fossils including lovely plant, insect and fish species that lived in an old lake bed setting. While the Metasequoia and other fossils found here are 52-53 million years old, the genus is much older. It is quite remarkable that both their fossil and extant lineage were discovered in just a few years of one another. 

Metasequoia was first described as a new genus from a fossil specimen found in 1939 and published by Japanese paleobotanist Shigeru Miki in 1941. Remarkably, the living version of this new genus was discovered later that same year. 

Professor Zhan Wang, an official from the Bureau of Forest Research was recovering from malaria at an old school chum's home in central China. His friend told him of a stand of trees discovered in the winter of 1941 by Chinese botanist Toh Gan (干铎). The trees were not far away from where they were staying and Gan's winter visit meant he did not collect any specimen as the trees had lost their leaves. 

The locals called the trees Shui-sa, or water fir. As trees go, they were reportedly quite impressive with some growing as much as sixty feet tall. Wang was excited by the possibility of finding a new species and asked his friend to describe the trees and their needles in detail. Emboldened by the tale, Wang set off through the remote mountains to search for his mysterious trees and found them deep in the heart of  Modaoxi (磨刀溪; now renamed Moudao (谋道), in Lichuan County, in the central China province of Hubei. He found the trees and was able to collect living specimens but initially thought they were from Glyptostrobus pensilis (水松). 

A few years later, Wang showed the trees to botanist Wan-Chun Cheng and learned that these were not the leaves of s Glyptostrobus pensilis (水松 ) but belonged to a new species. 

While the find was exciting, it was overshadowed by China's ongoing conflict with the Japanese that was continuing to escalate. With war at hand, Wang's research funding and science focus needed to be set aside for another two years as he fled the bombing of Beijing. 

When you live in a world without war on home soil it is easy to forget the realities for those who grew up in it. 

Zhan Wang and his family lived to witness the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, then the 1937 clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge, just outside Beijing. 

That clash sparked an all-out war that would grow in ferocity to become World War II. 

Within a year, the Chinese military situation was dire. Most of eastern China lay in Japanese hands: Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, Wuhan. As the Japanese advanced, they left a devastated population in their path where atrocity after atrocity was the norm. Many outside observers assumed that China could not hold out, and the most likely scenario was a Japanese victory over China.

Yet the Chinese hung on, and after the horrors of Pearl Harbor, the war became genuinely global. The western Allies and China were now united in their war against Japan, a conflict that would finally end on September 2, 1945, after Allied naval forces blockaded Japan and subjected the island nation to intensive bombing, including the utter devastation that was the Enola Gay's atomic payload over Hiroshima. 

With World War II behind them, the Chinese researchers were able to re-focus their energies on the sciences. Sadly, Wang was not able to join them. Instead, two of his colleagues, Wan Chun Cheng and Hu Hsen Hsu, the director of Fan Memorial Institute of Biology would continue the work. Wan-Chun Cheng sent specimens to Hu Hsen Hsu and upon examination realised they were the living version of the trees Miki had published upon in 1941. 

Hu and Cheng published a paper describing a new living species of Metasequoia in May 1948 in the Bulletin of Fan Memorial Institute of Biology.

That same year, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University sent an expedition to collect seeds and, soon after, seedling trees were distributed to various universities and arboreta worldwide. 

Today, Metasequoia grow around the globe. When I see them, I think of Wang and all he went through. He survived the conflict and went on to teach other bright, young minds about the bountiful flora in China. I think of Wan Chun Cheng collaborating with Hu Hsen Hsu in a time of war and of Hu keeping up to date on scientific research, even published works from colleagues from countries with whom his country was at war. Deep in my belly, I ache for the huge cost to science, research and all the species impacted on the planet from our human conflicts. Each year in April, I plant more Metasequoia to celebrate Earth Day and all that means for every living thing on this big blue orb.  

References: 

• https://web.stanford.edu/group/humbioresearch/cgi-bin/wordpress/?p=297
• https://humboldtredwoods.org/redwoods

PHYLLOCERAS CONSANGUINEUM

Phylloceras consanguineum (Gemmellaro 1876) a fast-moving carnivorous ammonite from Late Jurassic (Middle Oxfordian) deposits near Sokoja, Madagasgar, off the southeast coast of Africa. (22.8° S, 44.4° E: 28.5° S, 18.2° E)

This classical Tethyan Mediterranean specimen is very well preserved, showing much of his delicate suturing in intricate detail. Phylloceras were primitive ammonites with involute, laterally flattened shells.

They were smooth, with very little ornamentation, which led researchers to think of them resembling plant leaves and gave rise to their name, which means "leaf-horn."

They can be found in three regions that I know of.  In the Jurassic of Italy near western Sicily's Rosso Ammonitico Formation, Lower Kimmeridgian fossiliferous beds of Monte Inici East and Castello Inici (38.0° N, 12.9° E: 26.7° N, 15.4° E) and in the Arimine area, southeastern Toyama Prefecture, northern central Japan, roughly (36.5° N, 137.5° E: 43.6° N, 140.6° E) Dōitashimashite ; )

RHACOLEPIS BUCCALIS

Rhacolepis Buccalis, an extinct genus of ray-finned fossil fish in carbonate concretion, Lower Cretaceous, Santana Formation, Brazil. These nektonic carnivores swam our ancient seas 122-109 million years ago.

Le premier et unique géoparc mondial UNESCO est situé dans le Cariri du Ceará (géoparc Araripe), dans l'intérieur semi-aride de la région Nordeste, Brésil

GOAT: CAPRA AEGACRUS HIRCUS

Goats, Capra hircus, are a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. 

They were domesticated from wild goats, C. aegagrus, from Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. 

The goat is a member of the animal family Bovidae and the subfamily Caprinae, meaning it is closely related to sheep. 

There are over 300 distinct breeds of goat — one of the oldest domesticated species of animal. The archaeological evidence places their earliest domestication in Iran at 10,000 years ago.

Goat-herding is an ancient tradition that is still important in places like Egypt. Goats have been used for milk, meat, fur, and skins across much of the world. Milk from goats is often turned into white, crumbly goat cheese known as chèvre. If you love your palate, consider trying the Spanish take on slightly musty, velvety Garrotxa, a dense, aged explosion of flavour for the senses. You will taste some lemony tanginess with hints of toasted hazelnuts and aromatics of scrub brush and grasses growing in the foothills of the Pyrénées.

Female goats are referred to as does or nannies, intact males are called bucks or billies, and juvenile goats of both sexes are called kids. Castrated males are called wethers. While the words hircine and caprine both refer to anything having a goat-like quality, hircine is used most often to emphasize the distinct smell of domestic goats.

BREWERICERAS HULENENSE

Brewericeras hulenense (Anderson 1938) a fast-moving, nektonic (no idle floating here!) carnivorous ammonite from the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) of Haida Gwaii (aka Queen Charlotte Islands), British Columbia, Canada.

Ammonites belong to the class of animals called mollusks. More specifically they are cephalopods. and first appeared in the lower Devonian Period.

Cephalopods were an abundant and diverse group during the Paleozoic Era. This specimen is just over 12cm in length, a little under the average of 13.4cm. 

There are several localities in the archipelago of Haida Gwaii where Brewericeras can be found (six that I know of and likely plenty more!) 

This specimen was found on a trip a few years back done with the Vancouver Paleontological Society and a few of the members of some of the Island paleo groups. The preservation is quite remarkable!

Brewericeras are also found in Albian deposits in Svedenborgfjellet, Ulladalen, Norway (Cretaceous of Svalbard and Jan Mayen - så fin!) (77.7° N, 15.2° E: paleocoordinates 66.6° N, 13.6° E) and Matanuska-Susitna County, Alaska, 62.0° N, 147.7° W: paleocoordinates 57.3° N, 85.6° W (112.6 to 109.0 Ma.)

RED DEER: CERVUS ELAPHUS

PORT HARDY: TIME AND TIDE

One of the most beautiful areas of Vancouver Island is the town of Port Hardy on the north end of the island. 

Just outside Port Hardy further south on the west coast is the area known as Fort Rupert or Tsaxis. 

It was here that the Hudson's Bay Company built Fort Rupert both for trade with the local First Nation population and the allure of potential coal deposits. 

I headed up to the north island this past week to stomp around my old haunts, visit with family and get in a bit of late season kayaking. The town was much as I remembered it. There have been changes, of course. I lived up on Wally's hill above the reserve at Tsaxis beside the old cemetery. 

My wee childhood home is still there and I am very pleased to see that the earthly home of my ancestors is well maintained. The cemetery is groomed and cared for but the land surrounding it is overgrown and it took me a few minutes to orient myself to see where things used to be. Where the old Hudson's Bay Company Fort and its iconic chimney were in relation to the graveyard. 

A lifetimes worth of memories came flooding back. Those from my earliest years and then later when I returned to kayak, fish and scuba dive in these rich waters.

My plans of blissful days kayaking and taking photos of the scenery were altered by hurricane-force winds. Still beautiful, but chilly and choppy.

The beachhead here was clocking 120 km winds so I did a brief visit to the homestead, the graveyard and Jokerville then headed home to light the fire and hunker in as the storm blew through. 

Port Harty and Fort Rupert have an interesting history and how you read it or hear it truly depends on the lens that is applied. This has been the ancestral home to many First Nation groups. Mostly they were passing through and coming here to dig up delicious butter clams, roots, berries and other natural yummy goodness. Years before Port Hardy was settled at the turn of the century it was the home to the Kwakiutl or Kwagu’ł and part of my heritage. 

Alec and Sarah Lyon operated a store and post office on the east side of Hardy Bay. A 1912 land deal promoted by the Hardy Bay Land Co., put the area on the map and increased its population. By 1914, 12 families had settled, built a school, sawmill, church and hotel. 

The community of Port Hardy is situated within traditional Kwagu’ł First Nation territory. It is also home to the Gwa’sala-‘Nakwaxda’xw First Nation. In 1964 all the First Nations communities were amalgamated and forced to relocate from their traditional territories by the federal government, for administrative reasons. 

The First Nation families were told that it would cost less for education, easier for medical help, and the government would help with housing, but it turned out to be a hidden agenda designed to assimilate the various groups into Canadian society — or face extermination. Several years of threats and promises later, the Gwa’sala and ‘Nakwaxda’xw reluctantly gave in to the relocation, but the government didn’t keep their promise for adequate housing. 

There were five homes for over 200 people on the Tsulquate Reservation. The Gwa’sala traditional territory is Smith Inlet and surrounding islands. ‘Nakwaxda’xw traditional territory is Seymour Inlet, the Deserter’s Group, Blunden Harbour, and surrounding islands.

There was limited access to the community until the logging road connecting Port Hardy to Campbell River was paved in December of 1979.

Port Hardy’s population grew to a little over 5,000 residents during the Island Copper Mine years (1971-1995). The former mine site is located 16 kilometres south of Port Hardy on the shores of Rupert Inlet. The open-pit porphyry copper mine employed over 900 employees from Port Hardy and the surrounding communities. Today, the former mine has been transformed into a wildlife habitat and pit lake biological treatment system (BHP Copper Inc., 2010). The Quatsino First Nation manage the property and their Economic Development Board is exploring options for its use. 

The Quatsino First Nations have conducted several feasibility studies around the implementation of a puck or brickett mill onsite, utilizing the existing infrastructure, which includes six industrial buildings.

Today, Port Hardy serves as the crossroads for air, ferry and marine transportation networks, and serves as the gateway to the fast-growing Central Coast, the Cape Scott and North Coast Trails, and BC Ferry’s northern terminus for the Discovery Coast run and Prince Rupert. It supports several traditional and emerging sectors and remains rich in natural resources and community spirit.

Every corner of the Port Hardy region is enriched with culture and history. Starting with the two welcome poles in Carrot Park, both carved and replicated by Calvin Hunt, a Kwagu’ł artist who is based in Tsax̱is. 

From here and along the seawall are interpretive signs with Kwak’wala words for various wildlife, such as salmon, bear, wolf, and orca. At the end of this walk is Tsulquate Park. 

From here you can see across Queen Charlotte Strait; the ocean highway and lands of the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw. Port Hardy was named after Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy (5 April 1769 – 20 September 1839) who served as the captain of H.M.S. Victory in the Royal Navy. 

He served at the Battle of Trafalgar and held Lord Nelson at the end of that battle where Nelson died in his arms. Though he never visited this island community, it bears his name today. 

A ten-minute drive from downtown Port Hardy, in the neighbouring community of Fort Rupert, is the village of Tsax̱is. This is the current home of the Kwagu’ł First Nation. Here lies elaborated totem poles and the big house; a venue where First Nations ceremonies take place, such as the potlatch. 

The potlatch is a First Nations constitution that determines our politics, our government, our education, our medicine, our territory, and our jurisdiction. Potlatch is a complex event with several ceremonies, which are still practiced in buildings like the Tsax̱is big house.

On the front porch of the village of Tsax̱is is Tayaguł (Storey’s Beach). Along this waterfront were several villages, which are depicted on map (pictured below) by Mervyn Child, a Kwagu’ł artist. 

Across the way and middle of K’ak’a (Beaver Harbour) are Atłanudzi (Cattle Island), Ḵ’ut’sa̱dze (Peel Island), Ḵ’a̱msa̱x̱tłe (Shell Island), and Uxwiwe’ (Deer Island). Once the words are broken down and translated; the names of these islands are unique to their environment, as they’re part of a story that belongs to the Kwagu’ł.

Where: Port Hardy, British Columbia. 50°43'27"N, 127°29'52"W

SLEEPY BOY

DACTYLIOCERAS AMMONITE

A lovely Dactylioceras ammonite from the Lower Jurassic Upper Lias Holderness of the Yorkshire Coast. This beauty measures over 8cm with especially attractive colouring.

Holderness is an area of the East Riding of Yorkshire, on the east coast of England. An area of rich agricultural land, Holderness was marshland until it was drained in the Middle Ages. Topographically, Holderness has more in common with the Netherlands than with other parts of Yorkshire. To the north and west are the Yorkshire Wolds.

Geologically, Holderness is underlain by Cretaceous chalk but in most places, it is so deeply buried beneath glacial deposits that it has no influence on the landscape.

The landscape is dominated by deposits of till, boulder clays and glacial lake clays. These were deposited during the Devensian glaciation. The glacial deposits form a more or less continuous lowland plain which has some peat filled depressions (known locally as meres) which mark the presence of former lake beds. There are other glacial landscape features such as drumlin mounds, ridges and kettle holes scattered throughout the area.

The well-drained glacial deposits provide fertile soils that can support intensive arable cultivation. Fields are generally large and bounded by drainage ditches. There is very little woodland in the area and this leads to a landscape that is essentially rural but very flat and exposed. The coast is subject to rapid marine erosion.

The Geology of Yorkshire in northern England shows a very close relationship between the major topographical areas and the geological period in which their rocks were formed. The rocks of the Pennine chain of hills in the west are of Carboniferous origin whilst those of the central vale are Permo-Triassic.

The North York Moors in the northeast of the county are Jurassic in age while the Yorkshire Wolds to the southeast are Cretaceous chalk uplands. The plain of Holderness and the Humberhead levels both owe their present form to the Quaternary ice ages.

The strata become gradually younger from west to east. Much of Yorkshire presents heavily glaciated scenery as few places escaped the direct or indirect impact of the great ice sheets as they first advanced and then retreated during the last ice age. This beauty is in the collection of the deeply awesome Harry Tabiner.

SEAHORSE: LIVING FAIRYTALE CREATURES

One of the fairytale creatures that I was pleased to see truly exist is the seahorse. These marine lovelies are any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus Hippocampus. Hippocampus comes from the Ancient Greek hippókampos (ἱππόκαμπος) — a cobbling together of híppos (ἵππος) meaning horse and kámpos (κάμπος) meaning sea monster. A delightful albeit tad sinister name for these charming wee sea monster horses from our world's shallow tropical and temperate seas.

Having a head and neck suggestive of a horse, seahorses also feature segmented bony armour, wee tiny, spiny plates from tip to tail. 

They bob about in seagrasses, gripping with their curled prehensile tails when they want to stay in one place or using their dorsal or back fin to help them move up and down to swim about. Along with the pipefishes and seadragons — Phycodurus and Phyllopteryx — they form the fused jaw family Syngnathidae.

EVERY CHILD MATTERS: THE SIXTIES SCOOP

For First Nation, Métis & Inuit families, stories of government involvement in family life goes back generations.  

The legacy of removing children from their families and communities, first through the residential schools, and then through the child protection system, continues to impact the lives of these families, their children and their grandchildren.

The term Sixties Scoop was coined by Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System. It refers to the mass removal of First Nation, Métis and Inuit children from their families into the child welfare system — in most cases without the consent of their families, bands or communities. 

Professor Raven Sinclair recounts that Johnston told her about a social worker from British Columbia who shared the phrase when she told him …with tears in her eyes — that it was common practice in B.C. in the mid-sixties to scoop children from mothers on reserves — almost all newly born children were taken. She was crying because she realized — 20 years later — what a mistake that had been. 

The Sixties Scoop refers to a particular phase of a larger Canadian history, and not to an explicit government policy.  

Although the practice of removing Indigenous children from their families and into state care existed before the 1960s (with the Canadian federally funded Indian Residential Schools), the drastic overrepresentation of these children in the child welfare system accelerated in the 1960s. 

This is because a robust new resurgence of the practice saw large numbers of children seized and taken from their homes — and placed, in most cases, into middle-class Euro-Canadian families. 

Every Child Matters — An Epidemic of Aboriginal Child Apprehension

The government began phasing out compulsory residential school education in the 1950s and 1960s as the public began to understand its devastating impacts on families. It was the general belief of government authorities at the time that Aboriginal children could receive a better education if they were transitioned into the public school system. 

Residential schools, however, persisted as a sort of boarding school for children whose families were deemed "unsuitable" to care for them.  

This transition to provincial services led to a 1951 amendment that enabled the Province to provide services to Aboriginal people where none existed federally. Child protection was one of these areas. 

In 1951, twenty-nine Aboriginal children were in provincial care in British Columbia; by 1964, that number was 1,466. Aboriginal children, who had comprised only 1 per cent of all children in care, came to make up just over 34 per cent.

In the 1960s, the child welfare system did not require, nor did it expect, social workers, to have specific training in dealing with children in Aboriginal communities. Many of these social workers were completely unfamiliar with the culture or history of the First Nation, Métis & Inuit communities they entered. 

What they believed constituted proper care was generally based on middle-class Euro-Canadian values. For example, when social workers entered the homes of families subsisting on a traditional Aboriginal diet of dried game, fish, and berries, and didn’t see fridges or cupboards stocked in typical Euro-Canadian fashion, they assumed that the adults in the home were not providing for their children. 

Additionally, upon seeing the social problems reserve communities faced, such as poverty, unemployment, and addiction, some social workers felt a duty to protect the local children. So, instead of aiding the communities and providing support, they added to that emotional burden.  

In many cases, Indigenous parents who were living in poverty but otherwise providing caring homes had their children taken from them with little or no warning and absolutely no consent.  

It was not until 1980 that the Child, Family and Community Services Act required social workers to notify the band council if a child were removed from the community.

An alarmingly disproportionate number of Métis, Inuit and First Nation children were apprehended from the 1960s onward. By the 1970s, they would number one-third of all children in care. 

Approximately 70% of the children apprehended were placed into non-Aboriginal homes, many of them into homes in which their heritage was denied. In some cases, the foster or adoptive parents told their children that they were now French or Italian instead.

Government policy at the time did not allow birth records to be opened unless both the child and parent consented. This meant that many children suspected their heritage but were unable to have it confirmed.

Many children floated from foster home to foster home or lived in institutionalized care. Physical and sexual abuse was not uncommon, but it was usually covered up, rendered invisible by the lack of social services and support for the families and children, a result of the general social reluctance to publicly acknowledge such abuse at the time. 

The Aboriginal Committee of the Family and Children’s Services Legislation Review Panel’s report Liberating Our Children describes the negative consequences for Aboriginal children:

The homes in which children were placed ranged from those of caring, well-intentioned individuals, to places of slave labour and physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The violent effects of the most negative of these homes are tragic for its victims. 

Even the best of these homes are not healthy places for these children. Anglo-Canadian foster parents are not culturally equipped to create an environment in which a positive self-image can develop. In many cases, our children were taught to demean those things about themselves that are part of their heritage. 

Impacts of the Sixties Scoop

Nunatsiarmiut Mother and Child, Baffin Island, Nunavut

Children growing up in conditions of suppressed identity and abuse tend to experience psychological and emotional problems. 

For many apprehended children, the roots of these problems did not emerge until later in life when they learned about their birth family or their heritage. 

Social work professor Raven Sinclair describes these experiences as creating “tremendous obstacles to the development of a strong and healthy sense of identity for the transracial adoptee.” 

Feelings of not belonging in either mainstream Euro-Canadian society or in Aboriginal society can also create barriers to reaching socio-economic equity.

And yet, we still act surprised.

Several factors came together to instigate a change in the state of Aboriginal child welfare in Canada.  The influential National Indian Brotherhood’s 1972 report Indian Control over Indian Education inspired Aboriginal leaders to take control of other social services as well. 

Some Aboriginal leaders, including Secwepemc leader Wayne Christian, helped draw attention to the disproportionately high number of Aboriginal children apprehended by child welfare services and to the need to act.  

In 1983, the Canadian Council on Social Development commissioned Patrick Johnston to undertake what became the first comprehensive statistical overview of Aboriginal child welfare. The results showed that Aboriginal children were consistently overrepresented in child welfare services.

In 1985, Justice Edwin Kimelman released a highly critical review of this child apprehension entitled No Quiet Place: Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements. 

In this report, popularly known as The Kimelman Report, Kimelman and his committee, after holding hearings and listening to oral testimony, made 109 recommendations for policy change.  Kimelman concluded that “cultural genocide has taken place in a systematic, routine manner.” 

He was particularly appalled at the tendency to have First Nation, Métis & Inuit children from Canada adopted out to American families, calling it a policy of “wholesale exportation.” Kimelman finished his report by expressing his thoughts on his findings:

An abysmal lack of sensitivity to children and families was revealed. Families approached agencies for help and found that what was described as being in the child’s “best interest” resulted in their families being torn asunder and siblings separated. Social workers grappled with cultural patterns far different from their own with no preparation and no opportunity to gain understanding.

Child apprehension became viewed as the successor to the residential school system and as a new form of “cultural genocide.” 

Under article 2(e) of the U.N. Convention on Genocide (1948), “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” constitutes genocide when the intent is to destroy a culture. 

Many individuals may have acted with the best of intentions but as a Canadian cultural practice, it was genocide.

During the 1980s, the accumulation of the Kimelman report, the Johnston report, and resolutions by First Nations bands led provinces to amend their adoption laws to prioritize prospective adoption placements as follows: first, within the extended family of the child; second, by another Aboriginal family; third, by a non-Aboriginal family.

In 1990, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) created the First Nations Child and Family Services program (FNCFS), which transferred the administration of child and family services from the province or territory to the local band. Under the program, bands administer these services according to provincial or territorial legislation and child welfare standards, and INAC helps fund the bands’ child and family welfare agencies.  

Bands have increasingly taken control over their own child protection services. These services have also undergone some reform, such as expanding resources for single parents and establishing juvenile probation services. 

A Métis Child-Family Services program based in Edmonton is another example of an organization that incorporates traditional values into its adoptive family assessments. In many provinces and territories across Canada, a child is now entitled to know its background, and cultural appropriateness is considered in the assessment and screening of potential caregivers.

What is the Situation Today?

Sadly, the involvement of the child welfare system is no less prolific in the current era…the “Sixties Scoop” has merely evolved into the “Millennium Scoop.” – Sinclair, “Identity lost and found: Lessons from the sixties scoop.”

This overrepresentation continues today. We are now in 2021, looking big-eyed and surprised. Who knew? We knew. We have known for a very long time — and we continue the practice today. 

We know it is wrong and we know we need to act. We know the solution is not separating and destroying families but rather supporting them, supporting communities. 

The time for Truth and Reconciliation is now. It is not something we need to work towards in future. The time for wholesale support of children, families and communities is now. Right now. The time to heal is now. Canada has a chance to show leadership and compassion, a chance to develop systems that work.

Look at the children in your life. Imagine this for them. What would you do? What wouldn't you do? For each of them, let us come together and do better — for everyone.

If you fancy a read, here are some links below for you to explore that provide various lenses on the issue.

https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/sixties_scoop/

Canada. Report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Volume 3, Gathering Strength. Chapter 2, “Families.” Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996. 9-106.

Bennett, Marilyn. “First Nations Fact Sheet: A General Profile on First Nations Child Welfare in Canada.” First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/.../docs/FirstNationsFS1.pdf

Blackstock, Cindy, et al. “Keeping the Promise: The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Lived Experiences of First Nations Children and Youth.”  First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, 2004. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/.../docs/KeepingThePromise.pdf

Fournier, Suzanne and Ernie Crey. Stolen from Our Embrace. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1997.

Mandell, Deena, et al. “Chapter Three: Aboriginal Child Welfare.” In Cameron, Gary, Nick Coady, and Gerald R. Adams, eds. Moving Toward Positive Systems of Child and Family Welfare: Current Issues and Future Directions.  Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007.

Sinclair, Raven. 2007. “Identity lost and found: Lessons from the sixties scoop.” First Peoples Child and Family Review. 3.1 (2007): 65-82. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/.../vol3num1/Sinclair_pp65.pdf

Swidrovich, Cheryl Marlene. “Positive Experiences of First Nations Children in non-Aboriginal Foster or Adoptive Care: De-Constructing the “Sixties Scoop.”  MA Thesis, University of Saskatchewan. 2004. Available online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-07082008-141746

Walmsley, Christopher. Protecting Aboriginal Children.  Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005.

Photo: A gloriously happy Nunatsiarmiut Mother & Child, Solo Child, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada & Every Child Matters Illustration by the Fossil Huntress

JURASSIC BOUNTY

This Jurassic ammonite is from an all but inaccessible site in Sayward, Bonanza Group, Vancouver Island.

By the time these ammonites were being buried in sediment, Wrangellia, the predominately volcanic terrane that now forms Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands, had made its way to the northern mid-latitudes.

Within the basal part of the sequence, sedimentary beds are found interbedded with lapilli and crystal-tuffs. They include maroon tuffaceous sandstone, orange-grey sandstone, granule sandstone and conglomerate. Ammonites are found alongside gastropods and pelecypods. The Bonanza group is estimated to be at least 1000 metres thick.

We did a fossil field trip up there a few years ago. The site is quite small and the window to collect was limited so we were keen to see what had been exposed.

The drive up the mountain was thrilling as there had just been heavy rains and the road was washed out and narrowed until it was barely the width of our wheel base and then narrower further to be just shy of the width of the vehicle -- thrilling to say the least.

So scary that my passengers all got out as there was a good chance of going over the edge. I was going by some hand written notes and a wee map on a napkin that should have read, "park at the bottom and hike up," Ah, glorious fossils.

Graham Beard from Qualicum Beach was the fellow who showed me the site and drew the wee map for me. I cannot recall everyone on the trip, but Perry Poon was there (he shot a video of the drive up that he described as thrilling. I've never seen it but would like to one day) and so was Patricia Coutts with her lovely doberman. She and I had just done a trip up to Goldbridge where the cliff we were on had turned into a landslide into a ravine so she was feeling understandably cautious about the power of Mother Nature.

As I recall, I wasn't in my ordinary vehicle but a rental because my car had been stolen the weekend I'd headed to Jurassic Point to visit fossil sites with John Fam and Dan Bowen. Fortuitous really, as they stole my car but I'd unloaded my precious fossil collecting gear out of the trunk the day before.

Picture the angle, the hood of my jeep riding high and hiding what remained of the road beneath and a lovely stick shift that made you roll backwards a wee bit with every move to put it into gear. So, without being able to see the very narrow path beneath, I had to just keep going.

Both Perry and Patricia helped with filling in the pot holes so my tires would have something to grip. I bent the frame on the jeep heading up and had some explaining to do when I returned it to the car rental place.

The Memekay site yielded a mix of ammonites, gastropods and bivalves. Many of them poorly preserved.

Once up, I had to drive the whole thing again back down. Solo, as no one wanted to chance it. But well worth the effort as we found some great fossils and with them more information on the paleontology and geology of Vancouver Island.

ICELANDIC MANE

THE EVOLUTION OF FISH

The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago with the first fish lineages belonged to the Agnatha, a superclass of jawless fish. We still see them in our waters as cyclostomes but have lost the conodonts and ostracoderms to the annals of time. Like all vertebrates, fish have bilateral symmetry; when divided down the middle or central axis, each half is the same. Organisms with bilateral symmetry are generally more agile, making finding a mate, hunting or avoiding being hunted a whole lot easier.

When we envision fish, we generally picture large eyes, gills, a well-developed mouth. The earliest animals that we classify as fish appeared as soft-bodied chordates who lacked a true spine. While they were spineless, they did have notochords, a cartilaginous skeletal rod that gave them more dexterity than the cold-blooded invertebrates who shared those ancient seas and evolved without a backbone. Fish would continue to evolve throughout the Paleozoic, diversifying into a wide range of forms. Several forms of Paleozoic fish developed external armour that protected them from predators. The first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many species, including sharks, became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods.

Fishes in general respire using gills, are most often covered with bony scales and propel themselves using fins. There are two main types of fins, median fins and paired fins. The median fins include the caudal fin or tail fin, the dorsal fin, and the anal fin. Now there may be more than one dorsal, and one anal fin in some fishes.

The paired fins include the pectoral fins and the pelvic fins. And these paired fins are connected to, and supported by, pectoral and pelvic girdles, at the shoulder and hip; in the same way, our arms and legs are connected to and supported by, pectoral and pelvic girdles. This arrangement is something we inherited from the ancestors we share with fishes. They are homologous structures.

When we speak of early vertebrates, we're often talking about fishes. Fish is a term we use a lot in our everyday lives but taxonomically it is not all that useful. When we say, 'fish' we generally mean an ectothermic, aquatic vertebrate with gills and fins.

Fortunately, many of our fishy friends have ended up in the fossil record. We may see some of the soft bits from time to time, as in the lovely fossil fish found in concretion in Brazil, but we often see fish skeletons. Vertebrates with hard skeletons had a much better chance of being preserved. In British Columbia, we have lovely two-dimensional Eocene fossil fish well-represented from the Allenby of Princeton and the McAbee Fossil Beds. We have the Tiktaalik roseae, a large freshwater fish, from 375 million-year-old Devonian deposits on Ellesmere Island in Canada's Arctic. Tiktaalik is a wonderfully bizarre creature with a flat, almost reptilian head but also fins, scales and gills. We have other wonders from this time. There are also spectacular antiarch placoderms, Bothriolepsis, found in the Upper Devonian shales of Miguasha in Quebec.

There are fragments of bone-like tissues from as early as the Late Cambrian with the oldest fossils that are truly recognizable as fishes come from the Middle Ordovician from North America, South America and Australia. At the time, South America and Australia were part of a supercontinent called Gondwana. North America was part of another supercontinent called Laurentia and the two were separated by deep oceans.

CHUCKANUT DRIVE

GRAPTOLITES

Graptolites (Graptolita) are colonial animals. The biological affinities of the graptolites have always been debatable. Originally regarded as being related to the hydrozoans, graptolites are now considered to be related to the pterobranchs, a rare group of modern marine animals.

The graptolites are now classed as hemichordates (phylum Hemichordata), a primitive group which probably shares a common ancestry with the vertebrates.

In life, many graptolites appear to have been planktonic, drifting freely on the surface of ancient seas or attached to floating seaweed by means of a slender thread. Some forms of graptolite lived attached to the sea-floor by a root-like base. Graptolite fossils are often found in shales and slates. The deceased planktonic graptolites would sink down to and settle on the sea floor, eventually becoming entombed in the sediment and are thus well preserved.

Graptolite fossils are found flattened along the bedding plane of the rocks in which they occur. They vary in shape, but are most commonly dendritic or branching (such as Dictoyonema), saw-blade like, or "tuning fork" shaped, such as Didymograptus murchisoni.

GILAKAS'LA

 

DIABLO LAKE, NORTH CASCADES

Diablo Lake is a reservoir in the North Cascade mountains of northern Washington state

BURGESS, WALCOTT & WAVING CAMBRIAN WORMS

High up in the Canadian Rockies in an area known as Burgess Pass is one of the most unlikely, perfect and improbable fossil sites on Earth. The Burgess Shale sits high up on the glacier-carved cliffs of the Canadian Rockies.

The fine-grained shales from the Burgess were once part of the ancient landmass known as Laurentia, the ancient geologic core of the North American continent, and are home to some of the most diverse and well-preserved fossils in the world. The sedimentary shales here contain fossils that open a window to marine life some 508 million years ago.

The site is made up of a few quarries and includes the Stephen Formation (Mount Wapta and Mount Field) and the upper Walcott quarry with its Phyllopod Bed. There is also a lower quarry named for Professor Piercy Raymond who opened the site in 1924.

It is one of the rare locations in the world where both soft tissues and hard body parts have been fossilized amidst the layers of black shale that form Fossil Ridge and the surrounding areas.
Discovered 109-years ago in 1909 by Charles D. Walcott, the site has continued to wow scientists and the community at large year after year. Charles was in Canada after losing his first wife to a train crash in Connecticut. He met Mary Morris Vaux, an amateur naturalist from a wealthy family and this new love and her interest in the wilds of Canada had brought him back.

Walcott was a geologist, paleontologist and administrator of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, USA. He was an expert in Cambrian fossils for his time. A company man, he joined the US Geological Survey in 1879 and rose to become a director in 1894.  He served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1923 and was an advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt.

Picture the world at this time. Coca-Cola sold their first soft drink, in Germany, Wilhelm Roentgen developed the first x-ray and it was a year before the United States Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" public facilities for whites and blacks ought to be legal.

So, up and coming Walcott was up exploring in the Rockies and stopped to rest his horse. Always a rock man, he had his hammer handy and split some likely blocks. They contained trilobites and other arthropods now famous from the site.

While he recognized the significance of the site, it wasn’t until 1960 through the work of Alberot Simonella and others that the Burgess received the scientific attention it deserved.

In 1967, Harry Whittington initiated the Cambridge Project to re-open the Burgess files and build on the work of his predecessors. He brought two grad students on board to do the heavy lifting as a means to publish or perish. Simon Conway Morris (Worms) and Derek Briggs (Arthropods) completed the trio and together they formed the foundation of what was to become some of the most significant work of our time.

Imagine the first paleontologists working on these weird and wonderful specimens. Wondering at the strange and unlikely creatures made real before their eyes. It is a rare and exquisite thing to see soft-bodied organisms fossilized.

Every year, a new species or magnificent specimen is unearthed. In 2011, a hiker discovered a rare fossil of Ovatiovemis, a genus of filter-feeding lobopodians. Picture a marine worm with nine arms waving to you. Yep, that’s him. The specimen she found is now described as Ovatiovermis cribratus and is one of only two known specimens of Oviatiovermis from the Burgess.

This important site in the Canadian Rockies has been awarded protection as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1981) in recognition of the exceptional fossil preservation and diversity of the species found here.

With countless hours of research and study, we now know the Burgess Shale contains the best record we have of Cambrian animal fossils. It reveals the most complete record of creatures that proliferated the Earth showcasing the Cambrian explosion 545 to 525 million years ago.

It was a time of oceanic life in all it's splendor. The land may habe been inhospitable, barren and uninhabited but our oceans were teeming with new species. Great soft fine-grained mudslides slid onto an ecosystem in a deep-water basin.

Millions of years later, this unlikely event was revealed to us through the fossils preserved at Burgess.