LIMESTONE AND LIGHT: EGYPT BEFORE THE PHARAOHS

Much of Egypt’s history is carved in her rock. We think of Egypt as ancient—a land of pharaohs, pyramids, and hieroglyphs etched in stone—but the land itself tells a far older story. 

Long before kings rose and dynasties fell, before the Nile carved its fertile ribbon through desert sands, the foundations of Egypt were being forged deep within the Earth.

Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, occupies the northeastern corner of Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula extending beyond the continental boundary into Asia. 

It is bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba and Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. To the north, the Mediterranean Sea opens toward Europe—Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey—while across the Red Sea lies Saudi Arabia and, beyond the Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan.

To understand Egypt’s true antiquity, one must look not to its monuments, but to its bedrock. 

Five hundred kilometres southwest of Cairo, the flat sabkha plains stretch toward the horizon, scattered with wind-polished pebbles and eerie limestone pillars—natural monuments of a different kind. 

This striking karst landscape, weathered by time and the desert’s relentless breath, tells of ancient seas, tectonic upheaval, and long-vanished ecosystems.

Once the breadbasket of the Pharaohs and now scarred by oil pipelines and rusted trucks, this land has seen empires rise and vanish. Beneath the sand and relics of human ambition lies a deeper record—a geological archive of oceans, volcanoes, and shifting continents.

The story begins deep in time, during the Archaean Eon, when the Earth’s crust was first beginning to cool, between 4 and 2.5 billion years ago. The rocks from this period, preserved as ancient inliers in Egypt’s Western Desert, are among the oldest on the African continent. Later, during the Proterozoic, when oxygen was only just beginning to fill the planet’s atmosphere, new rocks were laid down in the Eastern Desert—igneous and metamorphic foundations formed when bacteria and marine algae were the dominant life on Earth.

These ancient crystalline roots form the basement complex upon which Egypt’s later history—both geological and human—would unfold. 

Over this foundation lie younger Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks, followed by widespread Cretaceous outcrops that speak of warm inland seas and lush river deltas. 

Still younger Cenozoic sediments record the rhythmic rise and fall of global sea levels—cycles of transgression and regression that alternately drowned and exposed the land. 

Each layer marks a new chapter in the story of water, time, and transformation. It is from these Cenozoic limestones, formed some 50 million years ago in the shallow seas of the Eocene epoch, that the stones of the Great Pyramids were quarried. Composed largely of the fossilized remains of ancient marine organisms—especially the large, coin-like foraminifera known as Nummulites—these rocks are both geological and biological archives. 

Every pyramid block is built from the remains of an ancient ocean, each fossilized shell a fragment of life that once thrived beneath the waters of the long-vanished Tethys Sea.

The pyramids of Giza, with their luminous exteriors of fine-grained white limestone from the quarries of Tura, stand as enduring testaments to human ingenuity and Earth’s deep-time creativity. They are monuments raised from the bones of microscopic life, shaped by hands that would have been surprised to know they were building with the remnants of a vanished world.

From the glittering deserts of Giza to the fossil beds of the Fayum, Egypt’s landscapes tell stories written in stone—of ancient oceans, shifting continents, and the eternal dialogue between life, death, and time. The Great Pyramid may have been built for eternity, but its foundations were set in motion eons before humanity’s first spark.

Beneath the gaze of the Sphinx and the shadow of Khufu’s towering pyramid, the story of Egypt’s limestone deepens. Those pale, gleaming blocks that once caught the desert sun are more than architectural marvels—they are the fossilized remains of an ancient sea, built from the microscopic shells of creatures that lived and died millions of years before the first pharaoh dreamed of eternity.

It is here, in the very stone of the Great Pyramid, that Egypt’s human history meets Earth’s geological past.

FOSSILS, GLACIERS AND GRIZZLIES: MOUNT ROBSON

Mount Robson

If mountains could preen, Mount Robson would be standing in front of a mirror right now, admiring its reflection in Berg Lake and saying, “Yes, I am the tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies, thank you for noticing.” 

Rising to 3,954 metres, this snow-crowned monarch of the Rockies reigns over Mount Robson Provincial Park—a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most geologically fascinating places in British Columbia. 

It’s a paradise for hikers, geologists, paleontologists, and anyone who’s ever wanted to meet a marmot that looks mildly unimpressed by your trail snacks.

Mount Robson, rises from the Traditional territories of several First Nations, including the Secwépemc (Shuswap), the Ktunaxa, the Lheidli T’enneh, and the Aseniwuche Winewak peoples. 

For millennia, these Nations have travelled, hunted, and held ceremony in the shadow of this sacred mountain, which marks a meeting place of waterways, trade routes, and stories. 

In Secwépemctsin, the mountain is known as Yuh-hai-has-kun, often translated as “The Mountain of the Spiral Road,” a reference to the swirling clouds that frequently wrap around its summit. 

To the First Nations of the region, Mount Robson is a living ancestor, a keeper of weather and water, whose glaciers feed the rivers that sustain salmon, elk, and human life far downstream.

Approaching Mount Robson

But this majestic mountain has a deeper past long before the first humans walked her hills. 

Mount Robson’s story begins more than half a billion years ago, long before its current icy grandeur. Back in the Cambrian and Ordovician, the area that would become the Rockies was a shallow tropical sea—think Bahamas, but with trilobites instead of tourists. 

Fossils near Mount Robson include Ediacaran fossils and Lower Cambrian trilobites. Ediacaran fossils, some of the oldest in the Royal BC Museum's collection, are found at Salient Mountain in Mount Robson Provincial Park. 

The area is also known for well-preserved olenellid trilobites (a personal fav) described by Walcott, which represent a unique subfauna from the upper Lower Cambrian 

Over time, layer upon layer of marine sediments accumulated, forming limestones, dolostones, and shales. These rocks would later be crumpled, twisted, and thrust skyward when the North American plate collided with terranes drifting in from the Pacific.

Mount Robson Park

Those ancient seabed layers form the foundation of Mount Robson itself. The upper slopes consist largely of Cambrian limestone and dolomite, while the base is built of older Precambrian rocks. 

It’s an upside-down cake of deep time—geological inversion courtesy of mountain-building forces so dramatic they’d make a soap opera blush.

Where there’s ancient limestone, there are often fossils—and Robson doesn’t disappoint. Fossilized trilobites, brachiopods, and stromatolites (those beautiful layered mounds built by ancient bacteria) have been found in the area, silent witnesses to an oceanic past. Some outcrops near the park boundary preserve the remains of early marine life forms from the Paleozoic Era—creatures that swam when this landscape was still submerged under saltwater.

While Mount Robson isn’t as famous for its fossil beds as nearby sites like the Burgess Shale in Yoho National Park, paleontologists have long been drawn to the region. Early researchers such as Charles Doolittle Walcott (the same fellow who discovered the Burgess Shale in 1909) made expeditions through the Rockies, mapping, collecting, and occasionally cursing the local mosquitoes. 

More recent work by Canadian geologists and Parks staff continues to uncover fossils that add texture to the province’s complex geological story—a story that stretches from ancient coral reefs to modern alpine tundra.

For those itching to get a closer look (without lugging a rock hammer through a vertical kilometre of switchbacks), Mount Robson Provincial Park offers guided tours and interpretive programs during the summer months. 

Mount Robson

The Robson Visitor Centre—perched right at the base of the mountain—features displays on geology, local fossils, and glaciology. 

Knowledgeable staff can point out safe and accessible fossil-bearing outcrops nearby, though collecting is not permitted within the park.

If you’re keen to dig deeper (figuratively, not literally), groups such as the British Columbia Paleontological Alliance and the BC Fossil Management Office occasionally host field trips and educational events. 

Joining a local paleontology club or volunteering with a regional museum is another way to learn the ropes and handle fossils ethically. You’ll meet passionate experts who can tell a trilobite pygidium from a bit of gravel at ten paces—a skill worth cultivating.

Of course, not all of Mount Robson’s treasures are fossilized. Wildlife photographers come here for the living wonders: mountain goats balancing on impossible ledges, black bears grazing on huckleberries, and elk posing like they’ve just wandered off a nature calendar. 

In the alpine meadows, hoary marmots whistle warnings, Clark’s nutcrackers chatter in the pines, and if you’re lucky, you might glimpse a bald eagle soaring against the glacier-blue sky.

Black Bear

In late summer, the wildflowers turn the meadows into a painter’s palette—Indian paintbrush, fireweed, and glacier lilies sway in the breeze, each one a living descendent of ancient lineages that have persisted through ice ages and uplift. 

It’s hard not to be moved by that sense of continuity, from fossilized coral reefs to alpine blooms, from trilobites to grizzlies.

Mount Robson is a place that humbles even the most talkative geologist. It’s a cathedral of stone and time, shaped by forces far beyond us. 

Whether you come to hike the Berg Lake Trail (currently undergoing restoration after flood damage), marvel at Emperor Falls, or simply sit beside the Fraser River’s headwaters and listen to the water’s cold, glacial song—do so with curiosity and care.

The fossils here remind us that worlds come and go, seas rise and vanish, and yet life continues to adapt, to thrive, and to leave behind beautiful traces.

So pack your camera, your curiosity, and maybe a sense of humour—because if there’s one thing Mount Robson teaches us, it’s that deep time has a way of putting all our little worries into perspective.

Remember, it is illegal to collect or remove any fossils, plants, or rocks from provincial and national parks in Canada. So pack a camera with a good macro lens for any goodies you do find. If you find something significant, report it, but do not collect it. The Fossil Management Office would love to hear of your find. You can reach them at www.gov.bc.ca. If you have GPS in your phone, you can also drop a pin to mark the spot.

• Link to Recreational Fossil Management Guidelines: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/natural-resource-use/land-water-use/crown-land/fossil-management/guidelines_for_recreational_collecting.pdf

BONES, BREATH AND BUFFALO: JOURNEY OF BISON BISON

Across the open grasslands, the earth trembles. A low rumble builds into a rolling thunder as a herd of bison surges across the plain—massive, shaggy, and magnificent. 

Their dark eyes glint beneath heavy brows, breath rising in clouds against the dawn. Each hoof step on the prairie is both ancient and new as the ever-evolving story of the bison unfolds.

The bison—Bison bison—are North America’s great survivors, the largest land mammals on the continent today. Once numbering in the tens of millions, they roamed from Alaska to Mexico, shaping entire ecosystems with their grazing patterns. Their wallows created microhabitats for wildflowers, insects, and birds, while their hooves churned the soil, spreading seeds and rejuvenating the grasslands.

But the story of the bison stretches far deeper into time. Their lineage reaches back more than two million years. Fossils of ancestral species such as Bison priscus, the steppe bison are found across the Pleistocene strata of North America, Europe, and Asia. 

These Ice Age giants crossed the Bering Land Bridge during glacial periods, eventually giving rise to Bison antiquus, a species that roamed the Great Plains alongside mammoths, mastodons, and saber-toothed cats. 

In places like Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming, Rancho La Brea in California, and the Old Crow Basin in Yukon, their bones tell stories of migration, climate change, and resilience.

When the last Ice Age faded, Bison antiquus evolved into the modern plains and wood bison we know today. 

For thousands of years, Indigenous Peoples have lived in relationship with these animals—honouring them as a source of food, clothing, tools, and shelter—and as sacred relatives. 

For many Plains Nations, the bison are central to Creation stories and cultural teachings, symbolizing abundance, respect, and balance with the natural world. 

Every part of the animal is used, and ceremonies of gratitude ensure the cycle of life continues in harmony.

Bison are once again returning to their ancestral lands. Through restoration projects and conservation efforts across North America, herds now graze protected grasslands and reserves. 

Restoration Projects in North America

In Canada, my home, we have both caribou and Bison Restoration Projects ongoing:

Poundmaker Cree Nation (Saskatchewan)

Poundmaker Cree Nation reintroduced plains bison (Bison bison bison) to their traditional territory in 2019. 

The herd represents both cultural renewal and food sovereignty, reconnecting community members to traditional practices and ceremonies involving the buffalo.

Tsuut’ina Nation (Alberta)

The Tsuut’ina Nation has long maintained a strong relationship with bison, working to conserve prairie grasslands and re-establish herds that support ecological balance and cultural revitalization. Their herd is used for both ceremonial and educational purposes.

Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation (Northwest Territories)

Łutsel K’e Dene Guardians work alongside Parks Canada to protect the Atsabya tué, or wood bison, Bison bison athabascae, populations within and around Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve—an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA).

Piikani Nation & Kainai (Blood Tribe), Blackfoot Confederacy (Alberta)

Members of the Blackfoot Confederacy are deeply involved in the Iinnii Initiative, an international partnership to restore iinnii (bison) to their ancestral range on both sides of the US–Canada border. Their work reconnects land, language, ceremony, and ecological stewardship.

Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations (British Columbia)

These Nations co-lead the Klinse-Za Caribou and Bison Restoration initiatives in the Peace Region. Their conservation leadership helped bring the local wood bison population back from near extinction through habitat protection and collaborative management.

Our neighbours to the south in Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming are making considerable restoration efforts. To all who are doing this important work, I raise my hands in thanks.

GARGOYLEOSAURUS: THE SPIKED GUARDIAN OF THE JURASSIC FOREST

Gargoyleosaurus by Daniel Eskridge

Step back into the lush forests of the Late Jurassic, about 155 million years ago, where ferns brushed the ankles of giants and the air buzzed with the calls of ancient insects. 

In the shade of towering conifers, a low-slung, tank-like creature ambled through the undergrowth — Gargoyleosaurus parkpini, one of the earliest known ankylosaurs.

A quiet forest dweller but no easy meal, Gargoyleosaurus was proof that sometimes survival comes not from speed or strength, but from a good suit of armour.

Unlike its later Cretaceous cousins, Ankylosaurus and Euoplocephalus, this Jurassic pioneer was smaller and a little more lightly built — about 3 metres long and weighing as much as a cow. 

But don’t let that fool you: Gargoyleosaurus was well-defended. Its body was draped in thick, bony plates called osteoderms, and along its flanks ran sharp spikes that would make any hungry predator think twice. 

Its head bore a beaked snout perfect for cropping low-growing plants, and behind that, the skull was crowned with rugged armour that gave the dinosaur its gargoyle-like name.

Fossils of Gargoyleosaurus have been unearthed in Wyoming’s Morrison Formation — the same ancient landscape that hosted Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, and Diplodocus. Imagine this spiky herbivore moving slowly through the ferns while massive sauropods grazed nearby and the shadows of meat-eating theropods flickered between the trees.

As one of the oldest ankylosaurs in the fossil record, Gargoyleosaurus gives us a glimpse into the early evolution of these living fortresses. Its mix of primitive and advanced features — such as an early form of its armored skull — hints at the experimentation nature was doing with defense long before the rise of the tail-club-wielding ankylosaurs of the Cretaceous.

ECHOES FROM THE EOCENE: A WHALE BETWEEN WORLDS

Chrysocetus foudasil 

The impressive skull you see here belongs to Chrysocetus foudasil a member of the Basilosauridae, an ancient family of fully aquatic early whales known as archaeocetes. Though it still bore vestigial hind limbs, it no longer depended on land—a critical evolutionary step from its semi-aquatic ancestors such as Ambulocetus and Protocetus.

Basilosaurids like Chrysocetus, Dorudon, and Basilosaurus ruled the seas of the late Eocene, occupying ecological roles much like today’s dolphins and orcas. 

Basilosaurus grew into a serpent-like giant over 15 meters long, while Dorudon was smaller, sleeker, and likely faster. Chrysocetus was somewhere in between—mid-sized, streamlined, and adapted for powerful undulating swimming.

These early whales represent a pivotal stage in cetacean evolution. They bridge the gap between the land-dwelling artiodactyl ancestors (even-toed ungulates like deer and hippos) and the fully marine mysticetes (baleen whales) and odontocetes (toothed whales) that would later diversify in the Oligocene.

Looking at their remains, we are seeing a window into our world when whales were still learning to be whales—a fleeting evolutionary moment preserved in Moroccan stone, where golden bones tell the story of an ocean in transition.

JOSE BONAPARTE: MASTER OF THE MESOZOIC

José Fernando Bonaparte

One of the most delightful palaeontologists to grace our Earth was José Fernando Bonaparte (14 June 1928 – 18 February 2020). 

We often think of those who have shaped our past and found many of the firsts of their region as living in ancient history, but José left us just this past year in February. 

He was a prolific and hard-working Argentinian palaeontologist who you'll know as the discoverer of some of Argentina's iconic dinosaurs — Carnotaurus, along with Amargasaurus, Abelisaurus, Argentinosaurus and Noasaurus. 

His first love was mammals and over the course of his career, he unearthed the remains of some of the first South American fossil mammals from the Mesozoic. 

Between 1975 and 1977, Bonaparte worked on excavation of the Saltasaurus dinosaur with Martín Vince and Juan C. Leal at the Estancia "El Brete."  Bonaparte was interested in the anatomy of Saltasaurus, particularly the armoured plates or osteoderms embedded in its skin. 

Carnotaurus skull

Based on this discovery, together with twenty examples of Kritosaurus australis and a lambeosaurine dinosaur found in South America, Bonaparte hypothesized that there had been a large-scale migration of species between the Americas at the end of the Mesozoic period.

The supercontinent of Pangea split into Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south during the Jurassic. During the Cretaceous, South America pulled away from the rest of Gondwana. 

The division caused a divergence between the northern biota and the southern biota, and the southern animals appear strange to those used to the more northerly fauna. 

Bonaparte's finds illustrate this divergence. His work is honoured in his moniker given to him by palaeontologist Robert Bakker — "Master of the Mesozoic."

HEMICHORDATE HERITAGE: GRAPTOLITES

From the dark shales of the Piranha Formation in Bolivia comes a striking fossil — Isograptus cf. maximus, a graptolite from the Middle Ordovician (Dapingian Stage), some 470 million years ago. 

This specimen, preserved in exquisite detail, is a window into the complex colonial life forms that once drifted through the ancient oceans of Gondwana.

Graptolites (Graptolita) were colonial marine animals, each “colony” composed of numerous tiny individuals called zooids that lived within cup-like structures known as thecae. These thecae were arranged along a central organic skeleton called the stipe, forming intricate branching or saw-blade–like patterns. For centuries, graptolites puzzled paleontologists — were they plants, corals, or something else entirely? 

Early researchers classified them as hydrozoans, but modern studies using ultrastructural and biochemical evidence have firmly placed them within the phylum Hemichordata, closely related to modern pterobranchs such as Rhabdopleura. This group, in turn, shares a distant ancestry with the vertebrates, linking these delicate fossils to our own deep evolutionary story.

In life, many graptolites were planktonic, drifting through Ordovician seas suspended from delicate threads or attached to floating seaweed, catching microscopic food particles as they went. Others were benthic, anchored to the seafloor by root-like structures. 

When they died, their lightweight colonies slowly sank to the ocean floor. Over time, fine muds buried them, and the soft organic skeletons became flattened and carbonized, leaving the characteristic dendritic or “tuning fork” impressions we see in shale today.

The diversity of graptolite morphology is remarkable — from the feathery fronds of Dictyonema to the elegant bifurcations of Didymograptus murchisoni. 

Isograptus cf. maximus, however, stands out even among this varied group. With its bold, symmetrical “wings,” it bears an uncanny resemblance to a stylized emblem — reminiscent of the Batman symbol, the Panem Mockingjay of The Hunger Games, or even an abstract eagle in flight. These forms, though purely natural, invite the human imagination to see something mythic in their symmetry.

This particular specimen, now part of the superb private collection of Gilberto Juárez Huarachi of Tarija, Bolivia, showcases the grace and geometric beauty that made graptolites not only essential tools for Ordovician biostratigraphy but also enduring icons of paleontological art. 

Long extinct, they nonetheless continue to “signal” to us across deep time — reminders of the ancient, drifting colonies that once filled the world’s primordial seas. And, they will always be a favourite of mine as finding my first graptolite remains one of my fondest paleo moments!

SAILS OF THE PERMIAN: REIGN OF DIMETRODON

Dimetrodon by Daniel Eskridge

In the steamy forests of the early Permian, some 295 million years ago, a Dimetrodon prowls through a world that feels both alien and oddly familiar. 

The forest hums with insect life, and the air hangs heavy with the scent of wet soil and decaying vegetation. 

Towering above are stands of lycopsids, early relatives of modern clubmosses, their scaly trunks reaching for the pale sun. 

Ferns carpet the forest floor, interwoven with the roots of primitive conifers. Between them flow sluggish streams, their surfaces shimmering with pollen and the movements of darting amphibians.

Through this primeval landscape moves Dimetrodon—muscular, deliberate, and unmistakable. Its back is crowned with a tall, elegant neural sail, formed by elongated vertebral spines connected by stretched skin. As dawn light breaks through the canopy, the sail glows amber and crimson, absorbing warmth to jumpstart its cold-blooded metabolism. 

Dimetrodon by Daniel Eskridge

In a world of fluctuating temperatures, such thermoregulation was a powerful evolutionary advantage. By mid-morning, the great predator is alert, its metabolism primed for the hunt.

A rustle in the underbrush betrays the movement of smaller synapsids—perhaps an Edaphosaurus, a plant-eater with its own sail, though broader and dotted with crossbars. Dimetrodon lowers its head and advances silently, each step careful, practiced. Its jaws, lined with serrated, ziphodont teeth, were perfectly adapted for slicing through flesh. 

Unlike the simple cone-shaped teeth of earlier reptiles, Dimetrodon’s dentition reveals its lineage as a synapsid—a group that would, through deep evolutionary time, give rise to mammals, including us.

Despite its reptilian appearance, Dimetrodon was not a dinosaur. It lived more than 40 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared. Its lineage represents an earlier, distinct branch on the tree of life: the pelycosaurs, the dominant land vertebrates of the Permian. 

These creatures were part of the great synapsid radiation, experimenting with new body plans and ecological roles in a rapidly changing world. Dimetrodon’s sail, once thought to serve purely for display, likely functioned as a thermal regulator, allowing it to warm up quickly in the morning and cool down in the heat of the day. 

Some also propose that the sail could have been a signal structure—flashing color patterns to warn rivals or attract mates among the ferns and cycads.

In the murky shallows nearby, lungfish burrow into the mud, preparing for the dry season. Amphibians the size of crocodiles lounge in the shallows, their nostrils barely above water. 

Dimetrodon may have been primarily a terrestrial hunter, but it was never far from the wetlands where prey was abundant. A sudden splash draws its attention—a large amphibian, perhaps a Diplocaulus, with its strange boomerang-shaped head, breaking the surface. Dimetrodon’s muscles tense; the predator lunges, jaws snapping shut with a crack that echoes through the forest. The water churns, then stills. A moment later, the sail-backed hunter emerges, victorious, dragging its meal to the shore.

The Permian ecosystem was one of transition—between the lush coal swamps of the Carboniferous and the arid supercontinent of Pangaea to come. Forests gave way to open plains and deserts, forcing animals to adapt or perish. Dimetrodon thrived in this environment for millions of years before disappearing in the changing climates of the late Permian, replaced by more advanced therapsids, the true precursors to mammals.

We find the fossils of Dimetrodon across North America, particularly in the Texas Red Beds and parts of Oklahoma, their bones preserved in ancient floodplain sediments. These remains—skulls, vertebrae, and the distinctive spines of its sail—offer us a window into deep time, to an age before dinosaurs, when the world was still finding its balance between reptile and mammal, swamp and desert, day and night.

Beneath the humid canopy of the Permian, Dimetrodon was master of its realm—a creature of sunlight and shadow, its sail gleaming like a living flame against the green gloom of the world’s first great forests.

MEET WEYLA: NEVADA'S ANCIENT WINGED BIVALVE

If you’ve ever wandered the fossil-rich hills of Nevada and come across a delicate, winged shell embedded in ancient limestone, you may have found Weyla — one of the more elegant bivalves of the Early Jurassic seas. 

With its distinct, elongated “wings” extending from the hinge line, Weyla looks more like a piece of sculpted jewelry than a clam. 

Their ridging is pleasing to the eye as you can see from the big rust and grey fossilized chunky monkey here in my hand.

190 million years ago, these bivalves were a common sight on the seafloor, filtering food from the nutrient-rich waters of the shallow marine basins that once covered what’s now the Nevada desert. 

October is my favourite time to explore these sediments. The temperature is just right, not too hot and not too cold. But, be warned. It is also tarantula breeding season so step lively! 

Weyla belongs to the family Bakevelliidae, a group of extinct saltwater bivalves that thrived during the Triassic and Jurassic. In Nevada, Weyla fossils are often found in the Sunrise and Gabbs Formations, layers of marine sediment that capture the recovery of life after the great end-Triassic extinction. These ancient beds also yield ammonites, belemnites, crinoids, and early marine reptiles—remnants of a world slowly rebuilding itself into the vibrant Mesozoic ocean ecosystem.

One of the fun things about Weyla is that it’s a bit of a globetrotter. Fossils have been found across Europe, South America, and Asia, making it a useful “index fossil” for correlating Jurassic rocks around the world. Paleontologists use its presence to date marine layers to the Pliensbachian stage, roughly 190 to 185 million years ago.

And here’s a curious twist — Weyla’s flared shape may have helped it stabilize on soft sea floors or even catch gentle currents to reposition itself — a clever adaptation for a sedentary creature. These elegant fossils remind us that even humble clams can leave behind a story of global recovery, resilience, and beauty etched in stone. They are easily recognizable in the field and once you do see a specimen, it is a great indicator that you will find many more fossils in the area.

GORGOSAURUS — SLEEK, FAST AND LETHAL

When you ask most folk to think of a dinosaur and share the first mighty brute that comes to mind, it is almost always Tyrannosaurus rex—the heavyweight champion of the Late Cretaceous. 

But long before T. rex dominated North America, a close relative, Gorgosaurus, prowled the floodplains of what is now Alberta, Canada, and Montana, USA. 

This predatory dinosaur was a top carnivore in its ecosystem, and its fossil record provides key insights into the evolution and diversity of tyrannosaurids.

Along with their bones, we find clues of where they lived, the environments they preferred, who were their neighbours and their source of food. Imagine travelling back in time to see them at their peak.  

The floodplain air hangs heavy with the musk of wet clay and the sweet rot of decaying vegetation. Dragonflies skim low over the water, their wings whispering in the heat, while the distant trill of frogs hums through the reeds. Then the stillness shatters. 

A crashing chorus of reeds bending, the frantic honking of a duck-billed hadrosaur, and the earth-shaking thud of pursuit burst around you. You press yourself against the rough bark of a cypress, heart hammering, as a Gorgosaurus explodes from the undergrowth. Its long legs churn the mud, kicking up a spray of black soil, and in a blink its massive jaws snap shut on the gentle plant-eater, the drama coming to an end as abruptly as it started.  

You are not the only witness. From the river shallows, a Deinosuchus lurks unseen, its armored back just breaking the water’s surface. Overhead, Pteranodon wheel and dip, their wings catching the sun as they circle in hope of scraps. Herds of Centrosaurus and Corythosaurus stand frozen at the edge of the floodplain, nostrils flaring at the metallic scent on the wind. Even the armored Edmontonia, crouched low among the ferns, holds perfectly still. 

This is a thrilling yet chilling world and the dominion of Gorgosaurus. It is a world we have been piecing together for just over a century. 

Gorgosaurus libratus was first described in 1914 by paleontologist Lawrence Lambe, based on a nearly complete skeleton from Alberta’s famous Dinosaur Park Formation. The name Gorgosaurus means “fierce lizard”—a fitting title for a predator that could grow up to 9 meters (30 feet) in length and weigh over 2 tonnes. Its remains are particularly abundant in Alberta, making it one of the best-studied tyrannosaurids.

Like its larger cousin T. rex, Gorgosaurus belonged to the family Tyrannosauridae. It had powerful hindlimbs, a massive skull filled with sharp, serrated teeth, and the characteristic short forelimbs of its lineage. These two bruisers had some key differences:

• Build: Gorgosaurus was more lightly built than T. rex, with a narrower skull and longer legs relative to body size. This suggests it was built for speed and agility, possibly making it a more active predator. Think of them as the sleeker, more gracile cousins of the mix.
• Teeth: Its teeth were recurved and laterally compressed, ideal for slicing through flesh.
• Senses: Like other tyrannosaurids, it likely had keen eyesight, an advanced sense of smell, and strong jaw muscles—making it a highly efficient hunter.

Gorgosaurus lived around 76–72 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. Its fossils are commonly found in the Dinosaur Park Formation, a rich fossil bed that also preserves ceratopsians (Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus), hadrosaurs (Corythosaurus, Lambeosaurus), ankylosaurs, and smaller predators like Dromaeosaurus.

This predator likely targeted juvenile ceratopsians and hadrosaurs, using its speed to pursue prey and its powerful jaws to deliver fatal bites. Evidence from bonebeds suggests that tyrannosaurids, including Gorgosaurus, may have occasionally scavenged as well as hunted live prey.

As to the adults, so too the young — one of the most fascinating aspects of Gorgosaurus research is the large number of juvenile specimens that have been found. We have learned a lot from having the benefit of so many great fossil specimens to study. 

Juvenile tyrannosaurs were more slender, with proportionally longer legs and arms, suggesting they filled different ecological niches than adults. Young Gorgosaurus may have hunted smaller, faster prey, while adults took on larger herbivores. This age-based division of labor—called ontogenetic niche partitioning—may have reduced competition within the species and helped tyrannosaurs dominate their ecosystems.

Gorgosaurus is part of the subfamily Albertosaurinae, alongside Albertosaurus. Compared to the bulkier Tyrannosaurinae (T. rex, Daspletosaurus), albertosaurines were slimmer and more gracile. Studying these differences helps us understand how tyrannosaurids diversified and adapted to different ecological roles across North America during the Late Cretaceous.

Fancy taking a look at some of these beasties for yourself? You can with a wee bit of travel. Three of my favourite museums come to mind that all house Gorgosaurus specimens and all are worthy of a lengthy exploration on your part: 

Royal Tyrrell Museum (Drumheller, Alberta): Houses multiple Gorgosaurus specimens, including impressive skulls and skeletons. This is an amazing museum and a personal fav. Definitely worth the trip. 

Canadian Museum of Nature (Ottawa): Displays Gorgosaurus fossils alongside other Canadian dinosaurs.

American Museum of Natural History (New York): Features tyrannosaur relatives, including Albertosaurus and T. rex, for comparison. I recommend you bring a snack and wear comfortable shoes.  

Gorgosaurus — sleek, fast, and lethal — it reigned as a top predator for millions of years. Its rich fossil record has given us an unparalleled look at tyrannosaur growth, anatomy, and ecology—making it one of the most important dinosaurs for understanding the rise of the tyrant kings.

DRIFTWOOD CANYON FOSSIL BEDS

Puffbird similar to Fossil Birds found at Driftwood Canyon 

Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park 

Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park covers 23 hectares of the Bulkley River Valley, on the east side of Driftwood Creek, a tributary of the Bulkley River, 10 km northeast of the town of Smithers in northern British Columbia. 

Driftwood Canyon is recognized as one of the world’s most significant fossil beds. 

It provides park users with a fascinating opportunity to understand the area’s evolutionary processes of both geology and biology. The day-use area is open from May 15 to September 2. There is a short, wheelchair-accessible interpretative trail that leads from the parking are to the fossil beds. Pets are welcome on leash. Signs along the trail provide information on fossils and local history. 

Wet'suwet'en First Nation

The parklands are part of the Traditional Territory of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation which includes lands around the Bulkley River, Burns Lake, Broman Lake, and François Lake in the northwestern Central Interior of British Columbia. 

The Wetʼsuwetʼen are part of the Dakelh or Carrier First Nation, and in combination with the Babine First Nation are referred to as the Western Carrier. They speak Witsuwitʼen, a dialect of the Babine-Witsuwitʼen language which, like its sister language Carrier, is a member of the Athabaskan family.

Their oral history or kungax recounts a time when their ancestral village, Dizkle or Dzilke, once stood upstream from the Bulkley Canyon. This cluster of cedar houses on both sides of the river was said to be abandoned because of an omen of impending disaster. The exact location of the village has been lost but their stories live on. 

The neighbouring Gitxsan, collectively the People of Smooth Waters—the Gilseyhu Big Frog Clan, the Laksilyu Small Frog Clan, the Tsayu Beaver Clan, the Gitdumden Wolf and Bear Clan and the Laksamshu Fireweed and Owl Clan—each phratry or kinship group calling the Lax Yip home—33,000 km2 of land and water in northwestern ​British Columbia along the waters of the Skeena River and its tributaries—have a similar tale—though the village in their versions is referred to as Dimlahamid or Temlahan depending on which house group or wilp is sharing the tale—as well as where they are located as dialects differ. 

Gitksan speak Sim'algax—the real or true language. Within the Gitxsan communities there are two slightly different dialects. The Gyeets (Downriver) dialect spoken in Gijigyukwhla (Gitsegukla), Gitwangax, and Gitanyow—and the Gigeenix (Upriver) dialect is spoken in Ansbayaxw (Kispiox), Sik-E-Dakh and Gitanmaax.

Driftwood Canyon Fossil Beds

Driftwood Canyon's Fossil Beds record life in the earlier portion of the Eocene when British Columbia — and indeed our world — was much warmer than it is today. This site was discovered in the beginning of the 20th century and is now recognized as containing significant fossil material. 

I was speaking this week with a friend and classmate recently from a Traditional Ecological Knowledge course through the University of Northern British Columbia, Jessy, about Driftwood Canyon and the fossil resources found here.

The fossils are tremendous—and their superb preservation—provide a fascinating opportunity to understand the area’s evolutionary processes of both geology and biology over the past fifty million years or so. The fossils themselves are 51.7 million years old and look remarkably like many of the species we recognize today. 

The fossil beds are on the east side of Driftwood Creek, C’ide’Yikwah in Witsuwit’en, which has its headwaters in the main, southwest facing basin of the Babine Mountains. The park that contains these beautiful fossils is fifty-seven years old. 

It was created in 1967 by the generosity of the late Gordon Harvey (1913–1976). He donated the land to protect fossil resources that he truly loved and wanted to see preserved. How Harvey came to be in a position to donate lands once part of a First Nation Traditional Territory will need to be explored deeper. I will share as I learn more about this as I learn more from locals and the local history museum in the coming weeks and months.

Metasequoia, the Dawn Redwood

Exploring the region today, we see a landscape dominated by conifers blanketing the area. 

Forests teem with the aromatic Western Red Cedar, Pacific Silver Fir with its many medicinal properties, the tall and lanky Subalpine Fir with its soft, brittle and quickly decaying wood, the slender scaly Lodgepole Pine, the graceful and slightly forlorn looking Western Hemlock. 

Across the landscape you see several species of Spruce, including the impressive Sitka, Picea sitchensis, the world's largest spruce tree who live up to an impressive 800 years. 

The stands of mature Sitka standing here today were just being established in this ground back in 1921 when Smithers was designated as the first incorporated village in British Columbia. They are slow to establish and get going, but once embedded are amongst the fastest growing trees we see on the western edge of Canada, colonizing glacial moraines with their cold resistant stock centuries ago when the glaciers that once covered this land eventually retreated.

Some of the tallest on view would have been mere seedlings, colonizing the glacial moraines centuries ago when the glaciers retreated. Collectively, these conifers tell the tale of the region's cool climate today. 

The Gitsan territory boasts seven of the 14 biogeoclimatic zones of the province—the Alpine Tundra, Spruce-Willow-Birch, Boreal White and Black Spruce, Sub-Boreal Pine-Spruce, Sub-Boreal Spruce, Engelmann Spruce-Subalpine Fir and Interior Cedar-Hemlock. 

The fossil material we find here speaks to a warmer climate in this region's past. We find fossil plants, fish—including specimens of salmon, suckerfish and bowfin, a type of air breathing fish—and insect fossil here—wasps and water striders—fossil plants including Metasequoia, the Dawn Redwood, alder—and interesting vertebrate material. Bird feathers are infrequently collected from the shales; however, two bird body fossils have been found here.

In 1968, a bird body fossil was collected in the Eocene shales of the Ootsa Lake Group in Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park by Pat Petley of Kamloops. 

Pat donated the specimen in 2000 to the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) palaeontology collections. This fossil bird specimen is tentatively identified as the puffbird, Piciformes bucconidae, of the genus Primobucco.

Primobucco is an extinct genus of bird placed in its own family, Primobucconidae. The type species, Primobucco mcgrewi, lived during the Lower Eocene of North America. It was initially described by American paleo-ornithologist Pierce Brodkorb in 1970, from a fossil right-wing, and thought to be an early puffbird. However, the discovery of a further 12 fossils in 2010 indicate that it is instead an early type of roller.

Related fossils from the European Messel deposits have been assigned to the two species P. perneri and P. frugilegus. Two specimens of P. frugilegus have been found with seeds in the area of their digestive tract, which suggests that these birds were more omnivorous than the exclusively predaceous modern rollers. The Driftwood specimen has never been thoroughly studied. If there is a grad student out there looking for a worthy thesis, head on down to the Thompson Rivers University where you'll find the specimen on display.

Another fossil bird, complete with feathers, was collected at Driftwood Canyon in 1970, This one was found by Margret and Albrecht Klöckner who were travelling from Germany. Theirs is a well-travelled specimen, having visited many sites in BC as they toured around, then to Germany and finally back to British Columbia when it was repatriated and donated to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. 

I am not sure if it is still on display or back in collections, but it was lovingly displayed back in 2008. There is a new grad student, Alexis, looking at Eocene bird feathers down at the RBCM, so perhaps it is once again doing the rounds. 

This second bird fossil is of a long-legged water bird and has been tentatively identified by Dr. Gareth Dyke of the University of Southampton as possibly from the order Charadriiformes, a diverse order of small to medium-ish water birds that include 350 species of gulls, plovers, sandpipers, terns, snipes, and waders. Hopefully, we'll hear more on this find in the future.

A Tapir showing off his prehensile nose trunk

Tapirs and Tiny Hedgehogs

The outcrops at Driftwood Canyon are also special because they record a record of some of the first fossil mammals ever to be found in British Columbia at this pivotal point in time. 

Wee proto-hedgehogs smaller than your thumb lived in the undergrowth of that fossil flora. They shared the forest floor with an extinct tapir-like herbivore in the genus Heptodon that looked remarkably similar to his modern, extant cousins (there is a rather cheeky fellow shown here so you get the idea) but lacked their pronounced snout (proboscis). I am guessing that omission made him the more fetching of his lineage.

In both cases, it was a fossilized jaw bone that was recovered from the mud, silt and volcanic ash outcrops in this ancient lakebed site. And these two cuties are significant— they are the very first fossil mammals we've ever found from the early Eocene south of the Arctic.

How can we be sure of the timing? The fossil outcrops here are found within an ancient lakebed. Volcanic eruptions 51 million years ago put loads of fine dust into the air that settled then sank to the bottom of the lake, preserving the specimens that found their way here — leaves, insects, birds, mammals.

As well as turning the lake into a fossil making machine—water, ash, loads of steady sediment to cover specimens and stave off predation—the volcanic ash contains the very chemically inert—resistant to mechanical weathering—mineral zircon which we can date with uranium/lead (U/Pb). 

The U/Pb isotopic dating technique is wonderfully accurate and mighty helpful in dating geologic events from volcanic eruptions, continental movements to mass extinctions. This means we know exactly when these lovelies were fossilized and, in turn, their significance.

Know Before You Go

If you fancy a visit to Driftwood Canyon Park, the park is accessible from Driftwood Road from Provincial Highway 16. You are welcome to view and photograph the fossils found here but collecting is strictly forbidden. 

Driftwood Canyon is recognized as one of the world’s most significant fossil beds. It provides park users with a fascinating opportunity to understand the area’s evolutionary processes of both geology and biology. The day-use area is open from May 15 to September 2. There is a short, wheelchair-accessible interpretative trail that leads from the parking are to the fossil beds. Pets are welcome on leash. Signs along the trail provide information on fossils and local history. 

Below a cliff face at the end of the trail is a viewing area that has interpretive information and viewing area overlooking Driftwood Creek.

This park proudly operated by Mark and Anais Drydyk

Email: kermodeparks@gmail.com / Tel: 1 250 877-1482 or 1 250 877-1782

Palaeo Coordinates: Latitude: 50° 51' 59" N / Longitude: 116° 27' 37" W

Lat/Long (dec): 50.86665,-116.46042 / GUID: d3a6bd3e-68d6-42cf-9b2c-d20a30576988

Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park Brochure: 

https://bcparks.ca/explore/parkpgs/driftwood_cyn/driftwood-canyon-brochure.pdf?v=1638723136455

Sheila Peters: Driftwood Creek – and the ways we cross it; here Sheila Peters shares a wonderful lived history which I have not had the pleasure to yet fully explore as of 09 February 2025. I do recommend you checking out her post as it contains information and photographs worthy of a newcomers visit to the area.

Link: https://sheilapeters.com/tag/peavine-harvey/

TRACKING DINOSAURS: FOOTPRINTS IN STONE

Dinosaur Track, Tumbler Ridge

Imagine kneeling beside a three-toed depression in a slab of sandstone, your fingers tracing the edges of a print left by a creature that thundered across the Earth over 100 million years ago. 

Dinosaur tracks—known scientifically as ichnites—are time capsules, snapshots of behavior frozen in stone. 

Unlike bones, which tell us what dinosaurs looked like, footprints reveal how they moved, how fast they walked, whether they traveled alone or in herds, and even how they interacted with their environment.

Footprints are classified by shape rather than by exact species, since tracks are trace fossils—evidence of activity, not anatomy. Paleontologists group them into “ichnogenera,” names based on their form.

• Theropods, the meat-eating dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus, left narrow, three-toed prints (tridactyl) with claw marks. Their tracks often show long, slender toes and a V-shaped outline.
• Ornithopods, the plant-eaters like Iguanodon, also made three-toed prints, but theirs are broader with blunt toes—built for walking on both two and four legs.
• Sauropods, the long-necked giants, left large round or oval footprints—massive impressions of their column-like feet, often paired with crescent-shaped handprints nearby.
• Ankylosaurs and stegosaurs left shorter, wider tracks, with toe impressions that resemble stubby, armored stumps.

Theropod Track

You can see spectacular dinosaur tracks across the world and close to home in western Canada. 

The Peace Region of British Columbia boasts the Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark, where hundreds of Cretaceous-era footprints adorn ancient riverbeds. 

In Alberta, the Dinosaur Provincial Park and the Willow Creek tracksites near Lethbridge preserve both sauropod and theropod prints. 

Farther south, classic trackways appear in Utah’s St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site and Colorado’s Picketwire Canyonlands, where sauropods once waded through ancient mudflats.

If you spot a fossil track, look closely at its size, toe count, and depth. 

Is it long and narrow, hinting at a swift predator, or broad and round, evidence of a lumbering herbivore? 

These shapes tell stories—of migration, of pursuit, of entire ecosystems now long vanished—each print a footprint not just in rock, but in time itself.

Definitely take a photo if you are able and if within cell range, drop a GPS pin to mark the spot to share with local experts when you get home.

Sometimes, you can find something amazing but it takes a while for others to believe you. This happened up in Tumbler Ridge when the first dino tracks were found.

In the summer of 2000, two curious boys exploring a creek bed near Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, made a discovery that would put their small northern town on the paleontological map. While splashing along Flatbed Creek, Mark Turner and Daniel Helm noticed a series of large, three-toed impressions pressed deep into the sandstone—too regular to be random. 

They had stumbled upon the fossilized footprints of dinosaurs that had walked there some 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous. Their find sparked scientific interest that led to the establishment of the Tumbler Ridge Museum and later the Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark. 

Since then, paleontologists have uncovered thousands of tracks in the area—from nimble theropods to massive sauropods—etched into the ancient riverbeds and preserving a vivid record of dinosaurs on the move in what was once a lush coastal plain. I'll share more on that amazing story in a future post!

WINGS OVER SOLNHOFEN: GRACEFUL PTERODACTYLUS SPECTABILIS

Pterodactylus antiquus 

Imagine the warm, shallow lagoons of what is now southern Germany during the Late Jurassic, some 150 million years ago. 

The air hums with the buzz of ancient insects, and along the silty shores of the Solnhofen archipelago—an island paradise trapped in time—a delicate shadow flits overhead. 

It’s Pterodactylus spectabilis, one of the earliest and most iconic of the pterosaurs.

Unlike the later, giant azhdarchids that would dominate the skies of the Cretaceous, Pterodactylus was petite and elegant. With a wingspan of about 1.5 metres, it would have weighed less than a modern crow. Its long, narrow jaws bristled with fine, conical teeth—perfect for snapping up fish and small invertebrates from the shallows or even catching insects mid-flight.

The fossils of Pterodactylus spectabilis are beautifully preserved in the fine-grained limestone of Solnhofen, Bavaria—the same deposits that yielded Archaeopteryx. 

Pterodactylus by Jean Hermann, 1800

These ancient lagoon sediments captured everything from the membranes of its wings to delicate impressions of skin and muscle. 

The exquisite preservation has allowed us to study details of its anatomy rarely seen in other pterosaurs, including evidence of pycnofibers—fine, hair-like filaments that may have helped insulate its small, warm-blooded body.

As a member of the order Pterosauria, Pterodactylus represents one of the earliest experiments in vertebrate flight. Its elongated fourth finger supported a broad membrane that stretched to its hind limbs, forming a living kite of bone and skin. 

The genus was first described in 1784 by the Italian naturalist Cosimo Alessandro Collini, later named by Georges Cuvier, who recognized it as a flying reptile—a revelation that forever changed how scientists imagined prehistoric life.

Pterodactylus spectabilis remains tell us of early flight and exceptional preservation and beauty—a window into a lagoon world where reptiles ruled the air long before birds had truly taken wing.

Image One: Holotype specimen of Pterodactylus antiquus, BSP AS I 739. Original photograph by Steven U. Vidovic, David M. Martill in http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0110646 Modified by Matthew Martyniuk: Cropped, color adjusted. Top central portion of non-fossil-bearing slab digitally altered to remove portion of ruler.

Image Two: Jean Hermann - Taquet, P., and Padian, K. (2004). "The earliest known restoration of a pterosaur and the philosophical origins of Cuvier’s Ossemens Fossiles." Comptes Rendus Palevol, 3(2): 157-175.

First of two life restorations of Pterodactylus antiquus by Jean Hermann of Strasbourg, sent to George Cuvier in 1800.

WILD EQUINE BEAUTY: ICELANDIC HORSES

Icelandic Horses

These beauties are Icelandic horses who graced me with their energy and spirit for a series of feel-good photoshoots along the southern coast of Iceland earlier this month. 

The Icelandic horse is a living link to an ancient lineage—compact, sure-footed, and enduring as the land it calls home. 

Though today’s Icelandic horses are domesticated, their story begins millions of years earlier, deep in the fossil record of the horse family, Equidae.

Horses first evolved in North America around 55 million years ago during the Eocene epoch. The earliest known ancestor, Eohippus (also called Hyracotherium), was a small, forest-dwelling animal no larger than a fox. 

Over tens of millions of years, its descendants—Mesohippus, Merychippus, Pliohippus—grew larger and adapted to open grasslands, developing longer legs and single-toed hooves suited for running. 

Icelandic Horses

Fossils of these transitional species are found in abundance across the Great Plains of the United States and in the Miocene deposits of Nebraska and Wyoming.

By the late Pliocene, around three million years ago, horses crossed the Bering land bridge into Eurasia. The genus Equus—to which all modern horses, donkeys, and zebras belong—emerged and spread rapidly. 

Fossils of Equus ferus, the wild ancestor of the domestic horse, are found across Europe and Asia. Horses later vanished from North America during the Late Pleistocene extinctions about 10,000 years ago, only to return with humans during the Age of Exploration.

The Icelandic horse descends directly from the hardy Scandinavian ponies brought to Iceland by Norse settlers in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. Protected by the island’s isolation and a millennium of careful breeding, it retains many primitive features—thick coats, strong bones, and an extra gait known as the tölt. 

While the fossil record of Equus does not include fossils from Iceland itself—its geologic strata are too young for that—the genetic and morphological heritage of these small but mighty horses is a living testament to a 55-million-year evolutionary journey.

FOSSIL BIRD REMAINS FROM SOUTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND

Stemec suntokum, a Fossil Plopterid from Sooke, BC

We all love the idea of discovering a new species—especially a fossil species lost to time. 

As romantic as it sounds, it happens more often than you think. 

I can think of more than a dozen new fossil species from my home province of British Columbia on Canada’s far western shores that have been named after people I know who have collected those specimens or contributed to their collection over the past 20 years. 

British Columbia, Canada, is a paleontological treasure trove, and one of its most rewarding spots is tucked away near the southwestern tip of Vancouver Island: the Sooke Formation along the rugged shores of Muir Beach.

A Beach Walk into Deep Time

Follow Highway 14 out of the town of Sooke, just west of Victoria, and you’ll soon find yourself staring at the cool, clear waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Step onto the gravel parking area near Muir Creek, and from there, walk right (west) along the beach. The low yellow-brown cliffs up ahead mark the outcrop of the upper Oligocene Sooke Formation, part of the larger Carmanah Group.

For collectors, families, and curious wanderers alike, this spot is a dream. On a sunny summer day, the sandstone cliffs glow under the warm light, and if you’re lucky enough to visit in the quieter seasons, there’s a certain magic in the mist and drizzle—just you, the crashing surf, and the silent secrets of a world long gone.

Geological Canvas of the Oligocene

The Sooke Formation is around 25 to 30 million years old (upper Oligocene), when ocean temperatures had cooled to levels not unlike those of today. That ancient shoreline supported many of the marine organisms we’d recognize in modern Pacific waters—gastropods, bivalves, echinoids, coral, chitons, and limpets. Occasionally, larger remains turn up: bones from marine mammals, cetaceans, and, in extremely rare instances, birds.

Beyond Birds: Other Fossil Treasures

The deposits in this region yield abundant fossil molluscs. Look carefully for whitish shell material in the grey sandstone boulders along the beach. You may come across Mytilus (mussels), barnacles, surf clams (Spisula, Macoma), or globular moon snails. Remember, though, to stay clear of the cliffs—collecting directly from them is unsafe and discouraged.

These same rock units have produced fossilized remains of ancient marine mammals. Among them are parts of desmostylids—chunky, herbivorous marine mammals from the Oligocene—and the remains of Chonecetus sookensis, a primitive baleen whale ancestor. There are even rumors of jaw sections from Kolponomos, a bear-like coastal carnivore from the early Miocene, found in older or nearby formations.

Surprisingly, avian fossils at this site do exist, though they’re few and far between. Which brings us to one of the most exciting paleontological stories on the island: the discovery of a flightless diving bird.

The Suntok Family’s Fortuitous Find

In 2013, while strolling the shoreline near Sooke, Steve Suntok and his family picked up what they suspected were fossilized bones. Their instincts told them these were special, so they brought the specimens to the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) in Victoria.

Enter Gary Kaiser: a biologist by profession who, after retirement, turned his focus to avian paleontology. As a research associate with the RBCM, Kaiser examined the Suntoks’ finds and realized these were no ordinary bones. They were the coracoid of a 25-million-year-old flightless diving bird—a rare example of the extinct Plotopteridae. In honor of the region’s First Nations and the intrepid citizen scientists who found it, he named the new genus and species Stemec suntokum.

Meet the Plotopterids

Plotopterids once lived around the North Pacific from the late Eocene to the early Miocene. They employed wing-propelled diving much like modern penguins, “flying” through the water using robust, flipper-like wings. Fossils of these extinct birds are known from outcrops in the United States and Japan, where some specimens reached up to two meters in length.

The Sooke fossil, on the other hand, likely belonged to a much smaller individual—somewhere in the neighborhood of 50–65 cm long and 1.7–2.2 kg, about the size and weight of a small Magellanic Penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) chick. The key to identifying Stemec suntokum was its coracoid, a delicate shoulder bone that provides insight into how these birds powered their underwater movements.

From Penguin Waddle to Plotopterid Dive

If you’ve ever seen a penguin hopping near the ocean’s edge or porpoising through the water, you can imagine the locomotion of these ancient Plotopterids. The coracoid bone pivots as a bird flaps its wings, providing a hinge for the up-and-down stroke. Because avian bones are so delicate—often scavenged or destroyed by ocean currents before they can fossilize—finding such a beautifully preserved coracoid is a stroke of incredible luck.

Kaiser’s detailed observations on the coracoid of Stemec suntokum—notably its unusually narrow, conical shaft—sparked debate among avian paleontologists. You can read his paper, co-authoried with Junya Watanabe and Marji Johns, was published in Palaeontologia Electronica in November 2015. You can find the paper online at:

 https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2015/1359-plotopterid-in-canada

The Suntok Legacy

It turns out the Suntok family’s bird discovery wasn’t their last remarkable find. Last year, they unearthed part of a fish dental plate that caught the attention of Russian researcher Evgeny Popov. He named it Canadodus suntoki (meaning “Tooth from Canada”), another nod to the family’s dedication as citizen scientists. 

While the name may not be as lyrical as Stemec suntokum, it underscores the continuing tradition of everyday fossil lovers making big contributions to science.

Planning Your Own Expedition

Location: From Sooke, drive along Highway 14 for about 14 km. Just after crossing Muir Creek, look for the gravel pull-out on the left. Park and walk down to the beach; turn right (west) and stroll about 400 meters toward the sandstone cliffs.

Tip: Check the tide tables and wear sturdy footwear or rubber boots. Fossils often appear as white flecks in the greyish rocks on the beach. A small hammer and chisel can help extract specimens from coquinas (shell-rich rock), but always use eye protection and respect the local environment.

Coordinates: 48.4°N, 123.9°W (modern), which corresponds to around 48.0°N, 115.0°W in Oligocene paleo-coordinates.

Why Head to Sooke? Pure Gorgeousness!

Whether you’re scanning the shoreline for ancient bird bones or simply soaking in the Pacific Northwest vistas, Muir Beach offers a blend of natural beauty and deep-time adventure. For many, the idea of unearthing a brand-new fossil species seems almost mythical. 

Yet the Suntok family’s story proves it can—and does—happen. With an appreciative eye, a sense of curiosity, and a willingness to learn, any of us could stumble upon the next chapter of Earth’s distant past.

So pack your boots, bring a hammer and some enthusiasm, and you just might find yourself holding a piece of ancient avian history—like Stemec suntokum—in your hands.

References & Further Reading

Clark, B.L. and Arnold, R. (1923). Fauna of the Sooke Formation, Vancouver Island, B.C. University of California Publications in Geological Sciences 14(6).

Hasegawa et al. (1979); Olson and Hasegawa (1979, 1996); Olson (1980); Kimura et al. (1998); Mayr (2005); Sakurai et al. (2008); Dyke et al. (2011).

Russell, L.S. (1968). A new cetacean from the Oligocene Sooke Formation of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 5, 929–933.

Barnes, L.G. & Goedert, J.L. (1996). Marine vertebrate palaeontology on the Olympic Peninsula. Washington Geology, 24(3), 17–25.

Kaiser, G., Watanabe, J. & Johns, M. (2015). A new member of the family Plotopteridae (Aves) from the late Oligocene of British Columbia, Canada. Palaeontologia Electronica.

Howard, H. (1969). A new avian fossil from the Oligocene of California. Described Plotopterum joaquinensis.

Wetmore, A. (1928). Avian fossils from the Miocene and Pliocene of California.