INUKSHUK

DRAGONFLIES: ANCIENT PREDATORS

Dragonflies, from the order Odonata, have been around for over 250 million years. The most conspicuous difference in their evolution over time is the steady shrinking of their wingspan from well over two and a half feet down to a few inches.

Voracious predators, today they dine on bees, wasps, butterflies and avoid the attentions of birds and wee lizards --  but back in the day, they had a much larger selection of meals within their grasp. Time has turned the tables. Small lizards and birds who today choose dragonflies as a tasty snack used to be their preferred prey. 

GORDES: CITY OF LIMESTONE & LIGHT

LOS NEANDERTALES

PLAZA DE ESPANA

PALTECHIOCERAS OF WRANGELLIA

Those working in the Jurassic exposures on Vancouver Island are a determined crew. Most of the sedimentary deposits of the Jurassic are exposed in the hard to reach areas between Nootka Sound and Cape Scott.

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-laditudes.

This detail of the Jurassic ammonite, Paltechioceras sp. shot with an ultra-low f-stop, is from an all but inaccessible site in Sayward, Bonanza Group, Vancouver Island.

We did a fossil field trip up there a few years ago with the Courtenay & Qualicum beach crew. The drive up the mountain was thrilling as the road narrowed until it was barely the width of our wheel base. Thrilling to say the least.

HOMAGE TO SPRING

ROLLED TRILOBITE

SUNBURST CORDOBA, SPAIN

ALHAMBRA PALACE, ANDALUSIA

LINCOLN CREEK FORMATION: EOCENE-OLIGOCENE BORDER

Fossil crabs, several dozen species of mulluscs including the elusive tusk shell have been found in the fossil exposures of the Lincoln Creek Formation, southern Olympic Peninsula, near the town of Porter, Washington, 46°56'20"N, 123°18'38"W.

It is a site I return to each year to see the erosion and what new specimens have worked their way to the surface.

The whitish strata consists of tuffaceous siltstone and sandstone with concretionary beds throughout. They are slightly older than originally thought, coming in around 37 million-years, straddling the Eocene-Oligocene border. Here a lovely crab, Pulalius vulgaris, sits in the sand. He would be in good company at the site amongst the more common scaphodpod shells and other wee gastropods.

The whitish aragonitic shells of scaphopods are conical and curved with a planispiral curve, looking a bit like an elephant's tusk, hence their common name. They prefer to live on soft substrates in subtidal zones so they are not as abundant or readily visible on our beaches as their gastropods and bivalves compatriots. Tusk shells and their fossil relatives, however, are found commonly in the sediments at Porter and other localities throughout the Pacific Northwest while crabs are found, but more rare.

TUSKS AND BONE: TANGIERS

During the Miocene and Pliocene, 12-1.6 million years ago, a diverse group of extinct proboscideans, elephant-like animals walked the Earth.

Most of these large beasts had four tusks and likely a trunk similar to modern elephants. They were creatures of legend, inspiring myths and stories of fanciful creatures to the first humans to encounter them.

Beyond our neanderthal friends, one such fellow was Quintus Sertorius, a Roman statesman come general, who grew up in Umbria. Born into a world at war just two years before the Romans sacked Corinth to bring Greece under Roman rule, Quintus lived much of his life as a military man far from his native Norcia. Around 81 BC, he travelled to Morocco, the land of opium, massive trilobites and the birthplace of Antaeus, the legendary North African ogre who was killed by the Greek hero Heracles.

The locals tell a tale that Quintus requested proof of Antaeus, hard evidence he could bring back to Rome to support their tales so they took him to a mound at Tingis, Morocco, where they unearthed the bones of a Neogene elephant, Tetralophodon.

Tetralophodon bones are large and skeletons singularly impressive. Impressive enough to be taken for something else entirely. By all accounts these proboscidean remains were that of the mythical ogre Antaeus and were thus reported back to Rome as such. It was hundreds of years later before their true heritage was known.

FOSSILS BENEATH THE MOSS: THE OLYMPIC PENINSULA

Third Beach in La Push, Washington

This is the view of low tide exposing the coastal rocks and sea stacks at Third Beach in La Push, Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.

If you’ve ever set foot on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, you know it feels like walking into awe inspiring nature—towering evergreens breathing fog, lush moss, the surf lapping at her shores and rivers that coil like dragons guarding secrets. 

What most visitors don’t know is that beneath all that soft green wizardry lies one of the wildest geologic patchwork quilts on the continent, stitched together from bits of wandering seafloor, ancient islands, and the sorts of rocks that only a subduction zone could love.

Let’s start with the big mover and shaker: the Juan de Fuca Plate, Earth’s most polite tectonic dinner guest, eternally slipping under North America with the quiet persistence of someone trying not to disturb the table. 

For millions of years, the seafloor has been bulldozed downward, its sediments scraped off, rolled up, smushed, and plastered onto the edge of the continent. 

This collection of recycled deep-ocean debris—sandstones, shales, basalts, the occasional volcano gone rogue—forms the Olympic Subduction Complex, a name that sounds like a niche gymnastics event but is, in fact, the bedrock of the peninsula.

Musashia, Lower Miocene, Clallam Formation

Now here’s where it gets juicy: among all that tectonic tumbleweed lie fossils. Unexpected fossils. Delightful fossils. 

Fossils that survived a one-way trip toward the mantle and still managed to hang on long enough for you to admire them.

Take the Makah Formation along the peninsula’s rugged northwest edge—a dramatic stretch where Eocene-age marine rocks (think 35–40 million years old) preserve the remains of ancient deep-water creatures. 

Here you can find the ghostly traces of prehistoric whales, fish, and even the occasional bird that took one wrong turn over the Pacific. 

These fossils are often so beautifully preserved that they look like they’ve been waiting under the waves for their close-up. Look at the amazing preservation in the picture perfect gastropod, Musashia, a type of fossil snail or gastropod, belonging to the subgenus Fulgoraria (Musashia) and are part of the larger family Volutidae. The beauty in my hand here is from the Clallam Formation as is the slightly calcified nautiloid, Arturia angustata, though these lovelies are also found in a few other localities along the Olympic Peninsula. 

The Lower Miocene nautiloid Arturia angustata

Adjacent to it lies the Hoshialeah Formation—a rock unit full of deep-sea turbidites, which are basically underwater avalanches that helpfully sorted fine sediments into perfect fossil-pressing layers. 

These rocks carry delicate impressions of fish scales, plankton, and mysterious organic wisps that paleontologists politely argue about at conferences.

Then there’s the Clallam Formation, where 15–20 million-year-old marine fossils swirl through the beds: clams, scallops, barnacles, sea lions, and whales. It’s like stumbling into a Miocene farmers’ market, except everything is stone and nobody is selling artisanal kelp jam.

And we mustn’t forget the Olympic hotshot of insect fossils, the Quinault Formation, which holds rare impressions of long-lost bugs—those six-legged pioneers of ancient Washington who never got the memo about the coming Ice Ages.

Neah Bay, Washington State

All of this—all this turmoil, uplift, squish, scrape, and tectonic origami—has created the spectacular mountains we see today. 

The Olympics are not volcanoes like their shouty cousins to the east. They’re a colossal jumble of once-submerged strata, hoisted skyward by subduction and then sculpted by glaciers into the moody, mist-laden peaks you hike now.

The delightful part? Because the rocks started underwater, much of the peninsula’s geology reads like a deep-sea diary. Even 7,000-foot peaks contain sedimentary layers that formed far offshore. 

Imagine standing on Hurricane Ridge, a mountain meadow full of wildflowers and marmots, knowing the rocks under your boots once lay on a cold ocean floor full of strange fish and drifting plankton. It’s an excellent perspective check—and a great excuse to tell your hiking companions dramatic stories about continental accretion until they pretend they need to stop for granola.

But here’s the real charm of the Olympic Peninsula: the sense of transformation. Every fossil here survived unimaginable pressure, heat, tectonic shoving, and glacial erosion—yet remains as a whisper from worlds long gone. Their presence is a quiet reminder that resilience is baked into the natural world. Even the humblest shell or fish scale becomes, given enough time and a few kilometres of uplift, a monument to endurance.

Whale Vertebrae from Majestic Beach, Washington

If you happen to be wandering the driftwood-strewn beaches near Neah Bay or tracing the tide lines near Clallam Bay, know that you’re standing on the upturned archives of ancient oceans. 

Somewhere beneath your feet, a whale vertebra or clam shell from 20 million years ago is patiently waiting for erosion—and your curiosity—to set it free.

And that, dear fellow rock-romantic, is the Olympic Peninsula: part rainforest, part mountain kingdom, part fossil cabinet, part tectonic balancing act. 

A place where the past is always underfoot, the present is draped in moss, and the future will probably require rain boots.

Lead Image: Low tide at Third Beach in La Push reveals coastal rocks and sea stacks along the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State by Nick Fox

DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW

THE GREAT FINGER FIASCO: HERMANN AND CUVIER

Johann Hermann's Pterodactylus, 1800

In the grand annals of science, few discoveries have flapped into history with quite as much confusion as the poor Pterodactylus. 

It began, as many great scientific mix-ups do, with an enthusiastic man, a misplaced fossil, and a few patriotic misunderstandings.

Back in March of 1800, Johann Hermann — a German-slash-French scientist (depending on which invading army was in town that week) — became convinced that an odd fossil described by Collini held the key to something extraordinary. 

Without actually seeing the specimen, Hermann took a bold scientific leap: he announced that the animal used its absurdly long fourth finger to support a wing membrane.

This, in hindsight, was rather brilliant — and also rather lucky. Hermann mailed off a letter (and a sketch) to the great French naturalist Georges Cuvier, suggesting that the fossil might even have been war booty, plundered by Napoleon’s scientifically curious troops and whisked off to Paris. After all, France’s armies were busily collecting everything from priceless art to interesting bones at the time — science’s version of a clearance sale.

In his letter, Hermann proposed that this mysterious creature was a mammal. Yes, a furry, bat-like, possibly adorable flying thing. He imagined it with soft pelage, wings stretching elegantly from its fourth finger to its ankle, and a fashionable membrane connecting neck to wrist — the very portrait of prehistoric glamour.

Cuvier, intrigued and perhaps unwilling to admit he didn’t have the fossil in question, agreed with the wing idea but drew the line at “fuzzy mammal.” In December 1800, he published a short note, adopting Hermann’s winged interpretation but firmly declaring, “Non, monsieur — this thing is definitely a reptile.”

Meanwhile, the fossil — allegedly stolen, possibly missing, and definitely not in Paris — turned up safe and sound in Munich. It had been spared confiscation thanks to one Baron von Moll, who managed to secure an “exemption from French enthusiasm.”

By 1809, Cuvier revisited the mystery, producing a longer and more confident description. He called it Petro-Dactyle (a typo he later fixed to Ptéro-Dactyle), thereby cementing both his reputation and a new spelling headache for future generations of palaeontologists.

He also took the time to dunk on his colleague Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who had suggested the fossil might belong to a shore bird. Cuvier’s rebuttal was deliciously dry:

“It is not possible to doubt that the long finger served to support a membrane that, by lengthening the anterior extremity of this animal, formed a good wing.”

And with that, science had its first flying reptile — a creature born not only from stone but from a glorious mix of imagination, rivalry, and a few well-placed postal misunderstandings.

If you ever feel unqualified to make a bold scientific claim, remember Johann Hermann — who identified a whole new order of life without even seeing the fossil. Sometimes, a good guess (and a long finger) can take you far as history shows here in the The Great Finger Fiasco: How Johann Hermann and Georges Cuvier Accidentally Invented the Flying Reptile. 

ANTARCTIC COMMUTE

PLAYFUL SEALS: MIGWAT

Seals—those sleek, playful creatures that glide through our oceans and lounge on rocky shores—are part of a remarkable evolutionary story stretching back millions of years. 

Though we often see them today basking on beaches or popping their heads above the waves, their journey through the fossil record reveals a dramatic tale of land-to-sea adaptation and ancient global wanderings.

Seals belong to a group of marine mammals called pinnipeds, which also includes sea lions and walruses. 

All pinnipeds share a common ancestry with terrestrial carnivores, and their closest living relatives today are bears and mustelids (like otters and weasels). 

While it may seem unlikely, their ancestors walked on land before evolving to thrive in marine environments. It takes many adaptations for life at sea and these lovelies have adapted well. 

The fossil record suggests that pinnipeds first emerged during the Oligocene, around 33 to 23 million years ago. 

These early proto-seals likely lived along coastal environments, where they gradually adapted to life in the water. Over time, their limbs transformed into flippers, their bodies streamlined, and their reliance on the sea for food and movement became complete.

In Kwak'wala, the language of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations of the Pacific Northwest, seals are known as migwat, and fur seals are referred to as xa'wa.

PALEO PUPPERS ON PATROL

ANDALUSIAN AUTUMN

OREGON COAST: BASALT COLUMNS

FOSSILS OF EGYPT: LIMESTONE AND LIFE

Spinosaurus, Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum

Egypt is often celebrated for its pyramids and pharaohs, but beneath those golden sands lies a much older and equally astonishing legacy — the fossil record of a land that has shifted from lush tropical forests to inland seas and back again.

From the Western Desert to the Fayum Depression and Wadi Al-Hitan (the Valley of the Whales), Egypt’s rocks preserve nearly 100 million years of life on Earth, from the Cretaceous dinosaurs that roamed its river plains to the Eocene whales that swam through the Tethys Ocean.

Over the past few posts, we've looked at the geological wonders of Egypt. Here is a deeper look at some of the many interesting fossil species to be found in this rich paleontological playground.

Petrified Wood — A Forest Turned to Stone

Across Egypt’s deserts, the ground often glitters with fossilized trees. The Petrified Wood Protectorate near New Cairo, along the Cairo–Suez road, and wide stretches of the Western Desert are carpeted in ancient trunks and branches turned to stone.

These fossil forests are vivid evidence that much of Egypt was once a humid, tropical landscape, rich with vegetation. The trees, buried in sediments and permineralized over millions of years, became exquisitely preserved in silica. Today, their polished cross-sections shimmer with bands of reds, browns, and golds — a striking reminder of the region’s deep ecological transformations.

Reptiles of the Fayum — Turtles, Crocodiles, and Giants — The Fayum Depression has yielded a wealth of Eocene reptile fossils that speak of a warm, watery world teeming with life. Land tortoises like Testudo ammon roamed the ancient floodplains, while river turtles such as Podocnemis blanckenhorni and Stereogenys pelomedusa swam through slow-moving channels. 

Even more dramatic are the remains of Gigantophis, one of the largest snakes ever discovered, and Tomistoma, a crocodile-like predator from the Qasr al-Sagha Formation. These reptiles hint at an ecosystem that blended mangroves, lagoons, and river deltas — a mosaic of habitats where both freshwater and marine species thrived.

Birds of an Ancient Delta — The Fayum’s fossil beds also record an impressive diversity of Eocene and Oligocene birdlife. The ancient wetlands once supported ospreys (Pandionidae), flamingos (Phoenicopteridae), herons, cranes (Gruidae), cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae), and even the massive shoebilled stork (Balaenicipitidae).

These avian fossils, comparable to species found today around Lake Victoria and the Upper Nile, suggest a vibrant, subtropical ecosystem rich in lakes and marshes — a far cry from the arid desert we see today.

Mammals of the Fayum — Whales, Elephants, and Early Primates

The mammalian fossils of Egypt are among the most extraordinary in the world. In the Fayum Depression and at Wadi Al-Hitan, paleontologists have uncovered a sweeping record of evolution from land to sea and from primitive mammals to the ancestors of modern species.

At Wadi Al-Hitan, skeletons of early whales — Basilosaurus isis, Dorudon atrox, and Phiomicetus — preserve a pivotal evolutionary moment when whales transitioned from walking on land to swimming in the sea. Their long, streamlined bodies and tiny hind limbs are beautiful testaments to nature’s adaptability.

Meanwhile, the terrestrial Fayum deposits reveal a menagerie of early mammals:

• Arsinoitherium, a massive, rhinoceros-like creature with twin horns;
• Moeritherium, a semi-aquatic ancestor of elephants and manatees;
• Palaeomastodon and Phioma, early proboscideans bridging the gap to modern elephants;
• and Megalohyrax, a giant relative of today’s small hyrax.

Carnivorous mammals also prowled these Eocene landscapes — species like Apterodon, Pterodon, and Hyaenodon, formidable predators of their time.

The Fayum Primates — Our Ancient Cousins — Among the Fayum’s most scientifically valuable discoveries are the fossils of early primates, bridging the gap between ancient prosimians and modern monkeys and apes.

From the lower sequence, we find forms like Oligopithecus savagei and Qatrania wingi, while the upper sequence preserves Catopithecus browni, Proteopithecus sylvia, and the well-known Apidium and Parapithecus species.

Perhaps most famous is Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, a small tree-dwelling primate with forward-facing eyes and a relatively large brain. It is often cited as one of the earliest known ancestors of modern Old World monkeys and apes — and, by extension, of humans.

These fossils from the Jebel Qatrani Formation provide an unparalleled window into primate evolution roughly 35 to 30 million years ago, when Africa’s tropical forests were home to our distant kin.

Dinosaurs of the Cretaceous Desert — Long before the whales and primates, Egypt’s landscape was dominated by Cretaceous dinosaurs. The Bahariya Formation and Nubian Sandstone have yielded fossils of immense sauropods and ferocious theropods, painting a vivid picture of life 95 million years ago.

Among the stars of this ancient cast are:

• The long-necked Aegyptosaurus and Paralititan, massive plant-eating sauropods;
• The sleek, predatory Bahariasaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Deltadromeus;
• The semi-aquatic Spinosaurus, with its iconic sail-backed spine — perhaps one of the most famous dinosaurs to ever emerge from African rock; and Mansourasaurus, a titanosaur discovered more recently, helping to link Africa’s late Cretaceous fauna with those of Europe and Asia.

These finds demonstrate that Egypt was once a fertile delta world of rivers and floodplains, where dinosaurs thrived long before the Sahara turned to sand.

Egypt’s Fossil Sites — Portals Through Time — Key fossil localities across the country continue to reveal Egypt’s ancient ecosystems:

• Wadi Al-Hitan — Eocene marine fossils, including whales and sea cows.
• Fayum Depression — rich terrestrial and freshwater deposits with early mammals and primates.
• Bahariya Formation — famous for Cretaceous dinosaurs and early vertebrates.
• Jebel Qatrani Formation — Oligocene primates and proboscideans.
• Qasr el Sagha Formation — reptiles, turtles, and early crocodilians.
• Upper Cretaceous Phosphates and Variegated Shale — marine invertebrates and early fish.
• Moghra Oasis — Miocene fossils bridging the gap between ancient and modern fauna.
• Queseir Formation — Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) deposit in the Kharga oasis of the Southwestern Desert where the first side-necked turtle Khargachelys caironensis can be found

Egypt’s fossils offer a spectacular narrative of evolution, climate, and change — from swampy Cretaceous river deltas to lush Eocene seas and forests, to the deserts we see today. 

Each discovery connects the story of Earth’s deep past with the land of the Pharaohs, revealing that Egypt’s most enduring monuments are not her pyramids, nor her simple blocks of stone, but the fossils buried them

Image Credit: Spinosaurus at the special exhibit of Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum by Palaeotaku CC BY 4.0

TYLOSTOME TUMIDUM

This lovely big fellow is Tylostoma tumidum, an epifaunal grazing Lower Cretaceous Gastropod from the Goodland Formation near Fort Worth, Texas, USA. (171.6 to 58.7 Ma)

PALM TRUNK MOULD

George Mustoe of the Burke Museum preparing to make a mould of a palm trunk that once gew in the wetlands that bordered an ancient river.

ERBENOCHILE ERBENI

A spectacular specimen of the trilobite Erbenochile erbeni. This impressive fossil arthropod shows unusual schizochroal eyes characteristic of the genus.

Family Odontopleuridae, Odontopleurid trilobite from the Lower Devonian, Emsian, 408 to 393 MYA, Bou Tiskaouine Formation, Hamar l”Aghdad Limestones, Taharajat, Oufaten, Djebel Issoumour

ARNIOCERAS AMMONITE: CANADIAN ROCKIES

CAMPING UNDER THE STARS

TRIASSIC PAPER CLAMS FROM PINE PASS NEAR TUMBLER RIDGE

Triassic Paper clams, Pardonet Formation

In the rugged foothills of Pine Pass, near the small northern British Columbia town of Chetwynd, the rocks tell a story from over 200 million years ago—a story written in shell just a short walk from the main road. 

Here, in outcrops of the Pardonet Formation, the remains of once-living bivalves called paper clams—or “flat clams”—paint a vivid picture of life in the Late Triassic seas.

During the Triassic, roughly 237–201 million years ago, these delicate-shelled bivalves of the genus Moinotis, specifically Moinotis subcircularis, thrived in shallow marine environments. 

Their thin, flattened shells resemble wafer-like sheets, earning them the common name “paper clams.” 

Despite their fragile appearance, they were ecologically tough, colonizing vast seafloor regions after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction—Earth’s most catastrophic biodiversity crisis. In the wake of devastation, paper clams became pioneers in new marine ecosystems, spreading widely across the Triassic world.

At Pine Pass, the Pardonet Formation captures this resilience in stone. The strata—composed mainly of silty shales and fine-grained sandstones—represent an ancient seabed deposited along the western margin of Pangea. These rocks are part of the larger Western Canada Sedimentary Basin and are well known for their rich fossil assemblages, including ammonoids, conodonts, and marine reptiles. Yet, among these Triassic relics, it’s the paper clams that often dominate.

A short scramble up the rocky slope near the highway reveals bedding planes glittering with thousands of tiny, overlapping shells. They lie perfectly preserved, their paper-thin forms cemented into the matrix as though frozen in a whisper of time. Each shell records a pulse of ancient life in a warm, shallow sea teeming with invertebrates.

Our field stop at Pine Pass was a spontaneous detour en route to a paleontological conference in nearby Tumbler Ridge—a region equally famed for its dinosaur tracks and marine fossils. What was meant to be a quick roadside break became a fossil feast. 

Within minutes, we were crouched among the rocks, gently tracing our fingers over Moinotis subcircularis—delicate, symmetrical, and as hauntingly beautiful as the day they settled on the Triassic seafloor.

GASTROPODA

LION: PANTHERA LEO

 

PARASAUROLOPHUS WITH A PEARL EARRING