We sometimes find these lovelies enrolled or semi-enrolled with their impossibly thin genal spines lifted in the air. The Cheirurids appeared about 500 million years ago and died out about 390 million years ago. They are definitely a favourite!
Thursday 18 March 2021
CHOCOLATE CHEIRURID
Wednesday 17 March 2021
DR. DANNER: FOSSILS OF THE CHILLIWACK GROUP
Monday 15 March 2021
SOUTH AMERICAN TAPIR
South American tapir, Tapirus terrestris |
He is a relative of the rhinoceros and like his rhino cousins, he loves the water. They play, swim, dive, and use it to protect themselves from predators.
Their feet are specially designed for swimming and walking on muddy shores. Each of their front feet has four splayed toes, a bit like having a fin or snowshoe on your feet. Their back feet have a similar design but with three toes. They nap and hide in the forest during the day and then head out at night to munch on leaves, shoots, fruit, and other green goodies in the Amazon Rainforest and the River Basin in South America, east of the Andes.
We find fossil remains of tapir first appearing in the middle Eocene, 41 million years ago. While many families of perissodactyls achieved very high levels of diversity, there have never been more than a few species of tapirs. Tapirs are also morphologically conservative - their teeth and skeletons resemble those of early ceratomorphs, and some have referred to them as living fossils.
The skull is very specialized with many unique features related to the development of the proboscis. The four living species of tapirs use the prehensile proboscis to browse selectively on leaves, sprouts, and small branches, including aquatic plants and also ingest a great deal of fruit and seeds.
While modern tapir species are confined to tropical forests of South America and Asia, they originated and persisted for many millions of years in more northern regions, even during the ice ages, although their rarity as fossils suggests favourable habitats may have been scarce. Recently a huge fossil accumulation of late Miocene tapirs was discovered near Gray, Tennessee. It is the largest accumulation of fossil tapirs in the world and suggests that tapirs were once very common in some parts of North America.
Tuesday 9 March 2021
HOW TO TELL FOSSIL BONE
Dinosaur Bone, Jurassic, Colorado, USA |
The distinction can be well seen here in both photographs. The partial weathering away of the smooth external bone has resulted in the exposure of the spongy bone interiors. Geographic context is important, so knowing where it was found is very helpful for an ID.
Knowing the geologic context of your find can help you to figure out if you've perhaps found a terrestrial or marine fossil. Did you find any other fossils nearby?
Can you see pieces of fossil shells or remnants of fossil leaves? Things get tricky with erratics. That's when something has deposited a rock or fossil far from the place it originated. We see this with glaciers. The ice can act like a plough, lifting up and pushing a rock to a new location, then melting away to leave something out of context. If you do think you have found fossil bone, it is likely that your local government would like you to report it. You may have found something very significant. I very much hope you have.
Monday 8 March 2021
HIKING TO THE FERNIE AMMONITE
This beauty is the remains of a carnivorous cephalopod within the family Dorsoplanitidae that lived and died in a shallow sea some 150 million years ago.
If you would like to get off the beaten track and hike up to see this ancient beauty, you will want to head to the town of Fernie in British Columbia close to the Alberta border.
Driving to the trail base is along an easy access road just east of town along Fernie Coal Road. There are some nice exposures of Cretaceous plant material on the north side (left-hand side) of the road as you head from Fernie towards Coal Creek. I recently drove up to Fernie to look at Cretaceous plant material and locate the access point to the now infamous Late Jurassic (Tithonian) Titanites (S.S. Buckman, 1921) site. While the drive out of town is on an easy, well-maintained road, the slog up to the ammonite site is a steep 3-hour push.
The first Titanites occidentalis was about one-third the size and was incorrectly identified as Lytoceras, a fast-moving nektonic carnivore. The specimen you see here is significantly larger at 1.4 metres (about four and a half feet) and rare in North America.
Titanites occidentalis, the Western Giant, is the second known specimen of this extinct fossil species. The first was discovered in 1947 in nearby Coal Creek by a British Columbia Geophysical Society mapping team. When they first discovered this marine fossil high up on the hillside, they could not believe their eyes — both because it is clearly marine at the top of a mountain and the sheer size of this ancient beauty.
In the summer of 1947, a field crew was mapping coal outcrops for the BC Geological Survey east of Fernie. One of the students reported finding “a fossil truck tire.” Fair enough. The similarity of size and optics are pretty close to your average Goodridge.
A few years later, GSC Paleontologist Hans Frebold described and named the fossil Titanites occidentalis after the large Jurassic ammonites from Dorset, England. The name comes from Greek mythology. Tithonus, as you may recall, was the Prince of Troy. He fell in love with Eos, the Greek Goddess of the Dawn. Eos begged Zeus to make her mortal lover immortal. Zeus granted her wish but did not grant Tithonus eternal youth. He did indeed live forever — ageing hideously. Ah, Zeus, you old trickster. It is a clever play on time placement. Dawn is the beginning of the day and the Tithonian being the latest age of the Late Jurassic. Clever Hans!
Hiking to the Fernie Ammonite
From the town of Fernie, British Columbia, head east along Coal Creek Road towards Coal Creek. The site is 3.81 km from the base of Coal Creek Road to the trailhead as the crow flies. I have mapped it here for you in yellow and added the wee purple GPS marker for the ammonite site proper. There is a nice, dark grey to black roadcut exposure of Cretaceous plants on the north side of the dirt road that is your cue to pull over and park.
You access the trailhead on the south side of the road. You'll need to cross the creek to begin your ascent. There is no easy way across the creek and you'll want to tackle this one with a friend when the water level is low.The beginning of the trail is not clear but a bit of searching will reveal the trailhead with its telltale signs of previous hikers. This is a 2-3 hour moderate 6.3-kilometre hike up & back bush-whacking through scrub and fallen trees. Heading up, you'll make about a 246-metre elevation gain. You won't have a cellular signal up here but if you download the Google Map to your mobile, you'll have GPS to guide you.
If you're coming in from out of town, the closest airport is Cranbrook. Then it is about an hour and change to Fernie and another 15-minutes or so to the site.
You will want to leave your hammers with your vehicle (no need to carry the weight) as this site is best enjoyed with a camera. This is a site you will want to wear hiking boots to access. Know that these will get wet as you cross the creek. If you'd like to see the ammonite but are not keen on the hike, a cast has been made by fossil preparator Rod Bartlett and is on display at the Courtenay Museum in Courtenay, Vancouver Island, Canada. Fernie Ammonite Palaeo Coordinates: 49°29'04"N 115°00'49"W
Saturday 6 March 2021
MADAGASCAR GIANT: LOBOLYTOCERAS
Ammonites were predatory, squidlike creatures that lived inside coil-shaped shells. Like other cephalopods, ammonites had sharp, beak-like jaws inside a ring of squid-like tentacles that extended from their shells. They used these tentacles to snare prey — plankton, vegetation, fish and crustaceans — similar to the way a squid or octopus hunt today.
Catching a fish with your hands is no easy feat, as I'm sure you know. Ammonites did the equivalent, catching prey in their tentacles. They were skilled and successful hunters. They caught their prey while swimming and floating in the water column. Within their shells, they had a number of chambers, called septa, filled with gas or fluid that were interconnected by a wee air tube. By pushing air in or out, they were able to control their buoyancy in the water column.
They lived in the last chamber of their shells, continuously building new shell material as they grew. As each new chamber was added, the squid-like body of the ammonite would move down to occupy the final outside chamber.
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.
Ammonites have intricate and complex patterns on their shells called sutures. The suture patterns differ across species and tell us what time period the ammonite is from. If they are geometric with numerous undivided lobes and saddles and eight lobes around the conch, we refer to their pattern as goniatitic, a characteristic of Paleozoic ammonites.Ammonites first appeared about 240 million years ago, though they descended from straight-shelled cephalopods called bacrites that date back to the Devonian, about 415 million years ago, and the last species vanished in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.
They were prolific breeders that evolved rapidly. If you could cast a fishing line into our ancient seas, it is likely that you would hook an ammonite, not a fish. They were prolific back in the day, living (and sometimes dying) in schools in oceans around the globe. We find ammonite fossils (and plenty of them) in sedimentary rock from all over the world.
In some cases, we find rock beds where we can see evidence of a new species that evolved, lived and died out in such a short time span that we can walk through time, following the course of evolution using ammonites as a window into the past.
For this reason, they make excellent index fossils. An index fossil is a species that allows us to link a particular rock formation, layered in time with a particular species or genus found there. Generally, deeper is older, so we use the sedimentary layers rock to match up to specific geologic time periods, rather the way we use tree-rings to date trees. A handy way to compare fossils and date strata across the globe.
Friday 5 March 2021
SUSAN'S HOLCOPHYLLOCERAS
Madagascar is a treasure trove of outstanding fossil species and this Holcophylloceras ammonite is no exception.
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.
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.
Thursday 4 March 2021
THE ELEPHANT BIRDS OF MADAGASCAR
Riding the movements of the Earth's crust, Madagascar, along with India, first split away from Africa and South America. The plates continued to shift and Madagascar split next from Australia and then Antarctica before and started heading north. While this was all happening at what may seem a snail's pace of two to four inches each year, the cumulative movement changed the shape of our world.
Around this same time, India smashed into Asia — forming the Himalayas in the process. Madagascar finally broke away from India and was marooned in the Indian Ocean. Beautiful and solo — Madagascar has been on its own for the past 88 million years.
With Madagascar being solo for so long, many of her species only exist — or briefly existed — here. One of the most interesting of these is the Elephant birds. They are members of the extinct ratite family Aepyornithidae, made up of enormous flightless birds that once lived on the island of Madagascar. A ratite is any of a diverse group of flightless and mostly large and long-legged birds of the infraclass Palaeognathae.
Elephant birds became extinct, around 1000–1200 CE, as a result of human hunting. Elephant birds comprised the genera Mullerornis, Vorombe and Aepyornis. While they were in close geographical proximity to the ostrich, their closest living relatives are the much smaller nocturnal Kiwi — found only in New Zealand — suggesting that ratites did not diversify by vicariance during the breakup of Gondwana but instead evolved from ancestors that dispersed more recently by flying.
Elephant birds were endemic to Madagascar. Phylogenetic, genetic, and fossil evidence all suggest that the elephant bird, along with the ostrich, arrived in Madagascar and India when these landmasses were still connected to Australia and Antarctica via a land bridge.When India and Madagascar split, the elephant bird wound up surviving on Madagascar, while the ostrich was carried north with India and was eventually introduced to Eurasia when India collided with the continent.
The presence of the elephant bird on Madagascar can be chalked up to vicariance; it was living on Madagascar land already when Madagascar broke off from India. Most of the species on Madagascar today seem to be descended from individuals that dispersed from Africa long after Madagascar was established as a separate island.
Very rarely, but occasionally, we find fossil eggs from Elephant Birds are found The National Geographic Society in Washington holds a specimen of an Aepyornis egg which was given to Luis Marden in 1967. The specimen is intact and contains the skeleton of the unhatched bird. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Denver, Colorado) holds two intact eggs, one of which is currently on display.
Another giant Aepyornis egg is on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, MA and a complete, unbroken egg, is held at Leeds Discovery Centre, Leeds, UK. A cast of the egg is preserved at the Grant Museum of Zoology at London University. There is also a complete specimen in the collections of the Kuleli Military High School Museum, Istanbul, Turkey.
David Attenborough, an esteemed naturalist and my personal hero, owned an almost complete eggshell, dating from 600 to 700 CE, which he pieced together from fragments that were given to him while making his 1961 BBC series Zoo Quest to Madagascar. In March 2011, the BBC broadcast the 60-minute documentary Attenborough and the Giant Egg, presented by Attenborough, about his personal scientific quest to discover the secrets of the elephant bird and its egg.
Photo: Griffon, Gyps fulvus. The griffon vulture is a large Old World vulture in the bird of prey family Accipitridae.
Photo: Aepyornis skeleton. Quaternary of Madagascar by Monnier, 1913 by Monnier - http://digimorph.org/specimens/Aepyornis_maximus/Aepyornis.phtml digimorph.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79655
Cooper, A., Lalueza-Fox, C., Anderson, S., Rambaut, A., Austin, J., and Ward, R. (2001). Complete mitochondrial genome sequences of two extinct moas clarify ratite evolution. Nature 409:704-707.
Goodman, S. M., and Benstead, J. P. (2005). Updated estimates of biotic diversity and endemism for Madagascar. Oryx 39(1):73-77.
Evolution Berkeley: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/091001_madagascar
Vences, M., Wollenberg, K. C., Vieites, D. R., and Lees, D. C. (2009). Madagascar as a model region of species diversification. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 24(8):456-465.
Saturday 27 February 2021
GULF ISLANDS GREEN ISLE
Arbutus tree, Arbutus menziesii, reaching out to sea, Hornby Island |
You also see lovely examples of the smaller Pacific yew, Taxus brevifolia, a small evergreen that is used by First Nations carvers for bows and paddles for canoes.
Many spectacular specimens of arbutus, Arbutus menziesii, grow along the water's edge. These lovely evergreens have a rich orange-red bark that peels away in thin sheets, leaving a greenish, silvery smooth appearance and a satiny sheen. And these trees, like all trees, have kin recognition. They can swap nutrients with one another using mycelium, the neural network of fungi, as their go-between. Arbutus, the broadleaf evergreen species is the tree I most strongly associate with Hornby. Hornby has its fair share of broadleaf deciduous trees. Bigleaf maple, red alder, black cottonwood, Pacific flowering dogwood, cascara and several species of willow thrive here.
There are populations of Garry oak, Quercus garryana, with their deeply lobed leaves, on the southern end of the island and at Helliwell Provincial Park on a rocky headland at the northeast end of Hornby.
Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii |
Sadly for Douglas, it is Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician, botanist, naturalist — and David's arch-rival, whose name is commemorated for science. He's also credited with the scientific name for our lovely arbutus trees.
Menzies was part of the Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy.
Their voyage built on the work of James Cook. Cook was arguably the first ship's captain to ensure his crew remained scurvy free by implementing a practice of nutritious meals (those containing ascorbic acid also known as Vitamin C) and meticulous standards for onboard hygiene. Though he did much to lower the mortality rate amongst his crew, he made some terrible decisions that led to his early demise. Cook was attacked and killed in 1779 during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific while attempting to kidnap the Island of Hawaii's monarch, Kalaniʻōpuʻu.
During the four and a half year Vancouver Expedition voyage, the crew and officers bickered amongst themselves, circumnavigated the globe, touching down on five continents. Little did they know, for many of them it would be the last voyage they would ever take.
The fellow for whom the fair city of Vancouver is named never did complete his massive cartographical work. With health failing and nerves eroded, he lost the dual and his life. It was Peter Puget, whose name adorns Puget Sound, who completed Vancouver's — and arguably Cook's work on the mapping of our world.
Wednesday 24 February 2021
DELICATELY RIDGED PORPOCERAS
Porpoceras (Buchman, 1911) is a genus of ammonite that lived during the early and middle Toarcian stage of the Early Jurassic. We see members of this genus from the uppermost part of the Serpentinum Zone to Variabilis Subzone. These beauties are found in Europe, Asia, North America and South America.
Ammonites belonging to this genus have evolute shells, with compressed to depressed whorl section. The flanks are slightly convex and the venter has been low. The whorl section is sub-rectangular.
The rib is pronounced and somewhat fibulate on the inner whorls — just wee nodes here — and tuberculate to spined on the ventrolateral shoulder. It differs from Peronoceras by not having a compressed whorl section and regular nodes or fibulation. Catacoeloceras is also similar, but it has regular ventrolateral tubercles and is missing the classic nodes or fibulation of his cousins.
This specimen hails from southern France near the Rhône, one of the major rivers of Europe. It has twice the average water level of the Loire and is fed by the Rhône Glacier in the Swiss Alps at the far eastern end of the Swiss canton of Valais then passes through Lake Geneva before running through southeastern France. This 10 cm specimen was prepared by the supremely talented José Juárez Ruiz
Tuesday 23 February 2021
HOMARUS OF LEBANON
The Cape lobster, which was formerly in this genus as H. capensis, was moved in 1995 to the new genus Homarinus.
Lobsters have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on the seafloor. Three of their five pairs of legs have claws, including the first pair, which are usually much larger than the others.
Highly prized as seafood, lobsters are economically important and are often one of the most profitable commodities in coastal areas they populate. Commercially important species include two species of Homarus — which looks more like the stereotypical lobster — from the northern Atlantic Ocean, and scampi — which looks more like a shrimp — the Northern Hemisphere genus Nephrops and the Southern Hemisphere genus Metanephrops. Although several other groups of crustaceans have the word "lobster" in their names, the unqualified term lobster generally refers to the clawed lobsters of the family Nephropidae.
Clawed lobsters are not closely related to spiny lobsters or slipper lobsters, which have no claws or chelae, or to squat lobsters. The closest living relatives of clawed lobsters are the reef lobsters and the three families of freshwater crayfish. This cutie was found in Cretaceous outcrops at Hâdjoula. The sub‐lithographical limestones of Hâqel and Hâdjoula, in north‐west Lebanon, produce beautifully preserved shrimp, fish, and octopus. The localities are about 15 km apart, 45 km away from Beirut and 15 km away from the coastal city of Jbail.
Sunday 21 February 2021
PLAZA DE ESPANA, SEVILLE
It is a landmark example of Regionalism Architecture, mixing elements of the Baroque Revival, Renaissance Revival and Moorish Revival styles of Spanish architecture. You can stroll through the grounds and explore each of the buildings. There is amazing tile work.
The Plaza de España, designed by Aníbal González, was a principal building built on the Maria Luisa Park's edge to showcase Spain's industry and technology exhibits. González combined a mix of 1920s Art Deco and Spanish Renaissance Revival, Spanish Baroque Revival and Neo-Mudéjar styles. The Plaza de España complex is a huge half-circle; the buildings are accessible by four bridges over the moat, which represent the ancient kingdoms of Spain. In the centre is the Vicente Traver fountain.
Many tiled alcoves were built around the plaza, each representing a different province of Spain. Each alcove is flanked by a pair of covered bookshelves, now used by visitors in the manner of a "Little Free Library". Each bookshelf often contains works with information about each province. Visitors have also donated favourite novels and other books for others to read.
Today the buildings of the Plaza de España have been renovated and adapted for use as offices for government agencies. The central government departments, with a sensitive adaptive redesign, are located within it. Toward the end of the park, the grandest mansions from the fair have been adapted as museums. The most distant museum contains the city's archaeology collections. The main exhibits are Roman mosaics and artefacts from nearby Italica.
The Plaza de España has been used as a filming location, including scenes for Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The building was used as a location in the Star Wars movie series Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) — in which it featured in shots of the City of Theed on the Planet Naboo. It also featured in the 2012 film The Dictator.
Saturday 20 February 2021
CERECINOS DE CAMPOS: DEINOTHERIUM
Deinotherium means "terrible beast," which feels a bit unkind to this vegetarian — though he was one of the largest elephants to walk this Earth.
They are relatively recent in the evolutionary story of the Earth. They first appeared 17 million years ago, had a short run of it and became extinct relatively recently — just 1.6 million years ago. This fellow's cousin, Deinotherium bozasi would likely have interacted with some of our oldest relatives.
One of the distinguishing features of Deinotherium is their curved tusks inserted only in the jaw. One of the tusks from this fellow, on display at the Museo Nacional De Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain, while incomplete, was preserved rather nicely and shows the detail of where the tusk meets the jaw. Deinotherium could reach a height of over 3.5 meters. Its structure and size are similar to those of the present-day elephant.
Thursday 18 February 2021
EL TORCAL DE ANTEQUERA
El Torcal de Antequera |
From the tops of the hillsides, you can see far into the fertile grazing lands of the province of Málaga.
There are numerous hiking routes throughout the park, some for serious walkers and climbers, as well as for those who might prefer a more gentle meander.
El Torcal is known for its unusual landforms and is regarded as one of the most impressive karst landscapes in Europe. Karst topography forms from the dissolution of soluble rocks like limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It often has underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves.
Water loves to dissolve the softer rocks but it works its erosional magic on harder, more weathering-resistant quartzites given the right conditions. El Torcal has many wonderful caves and thousands of chasms for the small animals living in this area to call home. Some are quite small, while others are large enough to be explored. The rock we see at El Torcal formed over several hundred million years.
Towards the Middle Miocene, the Iberian plates to the north of the Tethys Sea and the African plates to the south, compressed, deformed and fractured those sediments. This process is slow and continuous and still continues today. Water, wind and ice continue to shape the landscape and present the continually eroding karst landscape you can hike through today at El Torcal de Antequera.
El Torcal Natural Park is a UNESCO site. Hiking through the hills, you can see the large mushroom-shaped folds, with a very wide upper part and horizontal layers, and short and abrupt flanks. Karst acts as a large sponge, storing rainwater and releasing it within the rock to encourage the limestone to dissolve.
Gravity pulls the water down and it trickles out again as streams along the edge of the cliffs. One of the sites that the water gathers is in the Nacimiento de La Villa spring on El Torcal's north side.
El Torcal, Karst Topography |
Along with its distinct hoodoos, sprinkled amongst the limestones, you will find a wealth of interesting plants and wildlife. Look for lilies, red peonies, wild rose trees and thirty varieties of orchid.
The many species of reptiles include the Montpellier snake and ocellated lizard, both endemic to El Torcal.
Other wildlife to look for are the resident Griffon vultures and Spanish Ibex, Andalusian mountain goats, voles, fox and rabbits. If you are here in the evening, look for some of the nocturnal mammals who call these hills home — badgers and weasels.
The park has an excellent Visitor Centre which makes a natural starting point for your exploration of the reserve. There you will find details about the park, parking and walking routes. Guided walks are available, including the popular ‘Route of the 5 Senses’, a night-time ‘El Torcal Under Moonlight’ walk and a fossil-hunting walk, Route of the Ammonites. The visitor centre includes a very reasonably priced restaurant which offers a good selection of traditional food, all made with locally sourced ingredients.
For those who might enjoy some sightseeing in the heavens, this area of Spain has extremely favourable conditions for stargazing and astronomy. The Astronomical Observation of El Torcal (OAT) is located within the park. They host regular observation evenings that take advantage of the lack of light pollution in this region.
Places to Stay: Finca Gran Cerros Rural Retreat: The epitome of tranquil, rural Spain, Finca Gran Cerros nestles into the Andalusian hillside just a few minutes drive from the traditional white villages’ of Álora and Valle de Abdalajis. Visit them: https://www.fincagrancerros.com. Fina Gran Cerros is about 30 km south of El Torcal de Antequera nature reserve in the Sierra del Torcal mountains.
Wednesday 17 February 2021
OLD HABITS: DULCES AND SALMOREJO
It is a lost art as fewer and fewer nuns take their vows. living selling sweets and confections using recipes handed down from the Romans and Moors.
Have a bit of a sweet tooth? You will appreciate their efforts. Head to the Calle Santa Isabel with Euros on you. Once you enter the convent you'll not see any of the nuns, but will find yourself quite alone in a smallish room with a lazy Susan installed on the wall.
While I did see some nuns in the street, many do not leave the cloister or appear in public. You never see the nun with whom you do the transaction since these are cloistered nuns who do not look upon the outside world.
On the wall, you will see a price list. Once you have chosen your goodies, you ring the buzzer. A lovely voice will ask you what you would like to enjoy. Many of these egg yolk and sugary treats are sold by the box and offerings range from 11-88 Euros.
You place your verbal order, set the monies on the lazy Susan and give it a spin. And la voila, your sweets arrive. Beyond the tasty baking, you may want to try salmorejo. It is famous in the region and owes its origins to Moorish cuisine. The dish is a thick, cold, tomato-based soup made with garlic, sherry vinegar and sometimes topped with a hard-boiled egg or jamón. The tomatoes are a recent addition to the recipe, but this region grows some of the best so I can see the appeal. Think gazpacho only tastier. Simple and delicious.
Roman Bridge on Guadalquivir River, Córdoba |
The Convento de Santa Cruz, a convent n the historic centre, barrio de San Pedro, Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain, is well worth a visit. It was founded in 1435, by Pedro de los Ríos y Gutiérrez de Aguayo and his wife, Teresa Zurita.
The building has maintained close ties to the Ríos family who have worked to maintain it. They have added to the complex to interesting effect. It is notable for its originality, its architecture, and the artistic setting. These include the cloister, convent, church, house of the novices of the eighteenth century, and courtyard. In the main structure, there are architectural elements in Roman, Muslim, Moorish and Baroque styles, which witness the historic and artistic development of Córdoba. The retablos which decorate the church interior, tiling, and paintings are of note. It was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural site in 2011.
Photos: Nuns taking a stroll & the Roman Bridge on the Guadalquivir River and The Great Mosque — Mezquita Cathedral — at twilight in the city of Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain.
Foodie? You are welcome to drool over at https://spanishsabores.com/12-must-try-foods-in-cordoba-eat-like-a-local-in-cordoba/
Tuesday 16 February 2021
NEOCOMITES: AMMONITE ESPANA
The Baetic Cordillera is one of the main systems of mountain ranges in Spain along the southern and eastern Iberian Peninsula. There are several productive outcrops here that yield lovely Cretaceous ammonites and other marine species.
Neocomites are flucticulus a fast-moving nektonic carnivorous ammonite (Thieuloy, 1977) known from about a dozen offshore marine deep subtidal Cretaceous deposits in France, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine.
The photo and specimen you see here sharing a large boulder with a delicate heteromorph straight-shelled ammonite Bochianites are the first Neocomites I have seen come out of fossil deposits in Spain. It was found and prepped by the talented Manuel Peña Nieto of Córdoba, Spain.
Monday 15 February 2021
ANDALUSIA: ARCHITECTURE AND FOSSILS
Córdoba’s Mezquita Mosque-Cathedral |
Echinoid Fossil in the Mosque-Cathedral in Córdoba |
Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain |
Margocalizas del Jurásico Inferior |
Córdoba returned to Christian rule in 1236 during the Reconquista, and the building was converted to a Roman Catholic church, culminating in the inclusion of a Renaissance cathedral nave in the 16th century.
If you are visiting Andalusia, it is well worth a trip. Bring your camera and comfortable shoes.
There is a converted convent that is now a boutique hotel with a rooftop terrace — the Balcon de Córdoba — that I highly recommend. It is on Calle Encarnacion 8, 14003. If you are planning a stay, give them a jingle and enjoy their Old World style. Tel: +34 957 49 84 78.
Photo: The specimen you see here of the Lower Jurassic ammonite Margocalizas sp. is in the collections of the deeply awesome Manuel Peña Nieto of Córdoba, Spain.
Photo: Echinoid in the masonry of Córdoba’s Mezquita Mosque-Cathedral: Miguel López Pulido
Sunday 14 February 2021
HASLAM FORMATION NEAR BRANNEN LAKE
Steller's Jay, Cyanocitta stelleri |
The quarry is no longer active as such though there is a busy little gravel quarry a little way down the road closer to Ammonite falls near Benson Creek Falls.
Today it is an active motocross site and remains one of the classic localities of the Nanaimo Group. We find well-preserved nautiloids and ammonites — Canadoceras, Pseudoschloenbachia, Epigoniceras — the bivalves — Inoceramus, Sphenoceramus— gastropods, and classic Nanaimo Group decapods — Hoploparia, Linuparus. We also find fossil fruit and seeds which tell the story of the terrestrial history of Vancouver Island.
Upper Cretaceous Haslam Formation Motocross Pit near Brannen Lake |
While he lived on Vancouver Island, he was an active member of the VanPS back when I was Chair. Several of the best joint VIPS/VanPS paleontological expeditions were planned with or instigated by his passion for fossils. I tip my hat to him for his passion and shared love of all things paleo.
John grew up 15 minutes from the motocross locality and used to collect there a few times a week with his father. John has wonderful parents and since marrying his childhood sweetheart, the amazing Grace, those excellent genetics, curiosity and love of fossils are now being passed to a new generation. It's lovely to see John and Grace continuing tradition with two boys of their own.
I met John way back then and did an overnight at his parent's house the Friday before a weekend field trip to Jurassic Point. It was a joy to have him walk me through his collections and tell his stories from earlier years. After learning about the site from John, I headed up to the Motocross Pit with my Uncle Doug. He was a delightful man who grew up on the coast and had explored much of it but not the fossil site just 10-minutes from his home. It was wonderful to walk through time with him so many years ago and then again solo this past year with sadness in my belly that one of the best I've ever known has left this Earth.
Upper Cretaceous Haslam Formation Motocross Pit near Brannen Lake |
The rocks we find here were laid down south of the equator as small, tropical islands. They rode across the Pacific heading north and slightly east over the past 80 million years to where we find them today.
Jim Haggart and Peter Ward have done much to increase our understanding of the molluscan fauna of the Nanaimo Group. Personally, both personify the charming Indiana Jones school of rugged manly palaeontologists you picture in popular film. Professionally, their singular contributions and collaborative efforts have helped shape our understanding of the correlation of Nanaimo Group fauna to those we find in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia and down in the San Juan Islands of Washington State.
Their work builds on the work of Usher (1952), Matsumoto (1959a, 1959b) and Mallory (1977). A healthy nod goes out to the work of Muller and Jeletzky (1970) for untangling the lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic foundation for our knowledge of the Nanaimo Group.
Candoceras yokoyama, Photo: John Fam, VanPS |
Fancy some additional reading? Check out a paper published in the Journal of Paleontology back in 1989 by Haggard and Ward on new Nanaimo Group Ammonites from British Columbia and Washington State.
In it, they look at the ammonite species Puzosia (Mesopuzosia) densicostata Matsumoto, Kitchinites (Neopuzosia) japonicus Spath, Anapachydiscus cf. A. nelchinensis Jones, Menuites cf. M. menu (Forbes), Submortoniceras chicoense (Trask), and Baculites cf. B. boulei Collignon are described from Santonian--Campanian strata of western Canada and northwestern United States.
Stratigraphic occurrences and ranges of the species are summarized and those taxa important for correlation with other areas in the north Pacific region and Late Cretaceous ammonite fauna of the Indo-Pacific region. Here's the link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1305358?seq=1
Peter Ward is a prolific author, both of scientific papers and more popularized works. I highly recommend his book Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History. It is an engaging romp through a decade's research in South Africa's Karoo Desert.
Photo: Candoceras yokoyamai from Upper Cretaceous Haslam formation (Lower Campanian) near Nanaimo, British Columbia. One of the earliest fossils collected by John Fam (1993). Prepared using only a cold chisel and hammer. Photo & collection of John Fam, VIPS.
Saturday 13 February 2021
TORVOSAURUS: SAVAGE LIZARD
This toothy fellow is Torvosaurus tanneri and he hails from Late Jurassic outcrops in the Carnegie Quarry at Dinosaur National Monument, Morrison Formation, western United States — where we have found a single bone, his humerus telling us about his mighty size.
The specimen you see here is currently on display at the Museo Nacional De Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain.
Torvosaurus were one of the largest and most robust carnivores of the Jurassic.
These "savage lizards," were true to their name. They were skilled bipedal hunters who weighed over two tons. They had powerful dentition, large, sharp teeth and strong claws on their forelegs — ferocious predators of the Upper Jurassic. He would have roamed alongside the mighty Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus and Allosaurus.
Palaeontologist Earl Douglass, 1909 |
This was not the case for the Allosaurus — famed brontosaur hunters — who roamed the fern-covered floodplains of the Jurassic west and what would one day become the United States. Here they grew massive, passing twelve metres or 40 feet in length and towering over the local Tovosaurus. Allosaurus had a large bite, their jaws opening up very wide, making them capable of taking very big bites and positioning them as the top carnivores of the Late Jurassic.
Still, both of these hunters had to contend with Sauophaganax, the largest Jurassic theropod at a whopping twelve to thirteen metres — making it the largest Allosaurus and maybe even a wee bit larger than the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex roaming around western North America back when it was the island continent of Laramidia. This would have been fearsome land to roam as the juvenile of any species as all of these brutes would have the skill, speed and teeth to take you down.
Photo One: Tovosaurus tannerion display at the Museo Nacional De Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain.
Photo Two: Palaeontologist Earl Douglass digging up the remains of a Brontosaurus at the Carnegie Quarry, 1909. To learn more about this fossil site, visit: https://carnegiemnh.org/celebrated-fossil-quarry/
Friday 12 February 2021
KOURISODON PUNTLEDGENSIS
Kourisodon Puntledgensis |
The first set of about 10 mosasaurs vertebrae (Platecarpus) was found by Tim O’Bear and unearthed by a team of VIPS and Museum enthusiasts led by Rolf Ludvigsen. Dan Bowen and Joe Morin of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society prepped the specimens for the Museum.
In 1993, a new species of mosasaur, Kourisodon puntledgensis, a razor-toothed mosasaur, was found upstream from the elasmosaur site by Joe Zembiliwich on a field trip led by Mike Trask. A replica of this specimen now calls The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden home.
What is significant about this specimen is that it is a new genus and species. At 4.5 meters, it is a bit smaller than most mosasaurs and similar to Clidastes, but just as mighty. Kourisodon ("razor tooth") is a genus of mosasaur that has been found from Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, as well as from the Izumi Group of Japan.
Kourisodon Puntledgensis |
Interestingly, this species has been found in this one locality in Canada and across the Pacific in the basal part of the Upper Cretaceous — middle Campanian to Maastrichtian — of the Izumi Group, Izumi Mountains and Awaji Island of southwestern Japan. We see an interesting correlation with the ammonite fauna from these two regions as well.
In 2005, a fragmentary skeleton from exposures of the Izumi Group on Shikoku Island, Japan, was assigned to Kourisodon sp.
The Japanese specimen had longer maxillary teeth along with a few other differences from K. puntledgensis, which the authors interpreted to mean that this individual belonged to a second species, although this new species has not yet been formally named. Other fragmentary remains from the Izumi Group have been tentatively assigned to K. sp., some of which represent juvenile animals.
Until recently, mosasaur remains from the Izumi Group (Upper Cretaceous) in southwest Japan comprised only scattered finds. Recently, additional fossil material has been unearthed from the upper Campanian Hiketa Formation in Kagawa Prefecture.
A new Kourisodon sp. has just been recorded, on the basis of portions of skull and mandible which has small and laterally compressed teeth. A few teeth of the same or similar type have previously been described from the Maastrichtian Mutsuo Formation in Osaka Prefecture. A report of Mosasaurus sp. A, which resembles M. missouriensis and M. dekayi, is based on some cranial and mandible remains, inclusive of numerous teeth and a few well-preserved cervical and two incomplete dorsal vertebrae, from the Maastrichtian Mutsuo Formation in Osaka Prefecture.
There's still a bit of sorting to do to tease out the lineage of these lovely marine reptiles. A slender tooth of Mosasaurus sp. from the Mutsuo Formation has since been reassigned to Platecarpus (Plioplatecarpinae) yet may indeed be a species of Mosasaurus. It is currently recorded as Mosasaurus sp. B. Many smaller specimens of mosasaurids have been found in the Izumi Group. It may have been that these are juvenile mosasaurs or smaller-sized, Kourisodon-like animals. Recent finds of Kourisodon sp. from the upper Campanian Hiketa Formation and the Maastrichtian Mutsuo Formation suggests that we are seeing Kourisodon-like animals and a strong correlation with our own Pacific fauna from the Nanaimo Group.
What we do not see is a correlation between our Pacific fauna and those from our neighbouring province to the east. Betsy Nicholls and Dirk Meckert published on the marine reptiles from the Nanaimo Group (Upper Cretaceous) of Vancouver Island in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences in 2002. What we see in our faunal mix reinforces the provinciality of the Pacific faunas — though a strong correlation with Cretaceous Japanese fauna — and their isolation from contemporaneous faunas in the Western Interior Seaway.
Thursday 11 February 2021
PUNTLEDGE ELASMOSAUR
They found this mighty marine reptile in the winter of 1988 while fossil collecting along the Puntledge River.
While he couldn't have known it at the time, it was this discovery and those that followed that would spark a renewed interest in palaeontology on Vancouver Island and the province of British Columbia., inspire the creation of the Vancouver Palaeontological Society, the BC Paleontological Alliance & change the face of palaeo in the province.
Mike had forged ahead, adding chalk outlines to interesting fossil and nodules in the 83 million-year-old shales along the riverbank. His daughter, Heather, was looking at the interesting features he had just outlined when they both noticed some tasty blocks and concretions in situ just a few meters away. Taking a closer look, they were thrilled to discover that they held the bones of a large marine reptile.
Unsure of what exactly they'd discovered but recognizing them as significant, Mike reached out to Dr. Betsy Nicholls a lovely researcher at the Royal Tyrell Museum.It was Betsy who had written up the incomplete specimen of fossil turtle, Desmatochelys cf. D. lowi — Reptilia: Chelonioidea — found by Richard Bolt, Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society, in the shales of the Trent River Formation along the Puntledge River in the early 1990s.
Dr. Nicholls wrote up the paper and published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences in 1992. At that time, it was the first documented account of a Cretaceous marine vertebrate from the Pacific coast of Canada, which shows you how much we've learned about our Pacific coast in just the last few years.
The Desmatchelys find inspired the 1999 BCPA Symposium conference logo. Every second year, the BCPA hosts a symposium. The 1999 conference at UBC was the first time the Vancouver Paleontological Society had hosted a BCPA conference. The conference abstract was graced with a trilobite embedded within a turtle, celebrating recent significant contributions to Canadian palaeontology.
When Mike showed her the bones he'd found, Betsy confirmed them to be that of an elasmosaur, a large marine reptile with a small head, razor-sharp teeth and a long neck — and the first discovery of an elasmosaur west of the Canadian Rockies — another first. It was one of those moments that lights up and inspires a whole community.When the bones were fully excavated, this 15-meter marine beauty underwent a year of preparation to reveal the skeleton you see here. You can visit the fully prepped specimen and see the articulated bones beneath a glass case in the Courtenay Museum on Vancouver Island.
The Puntledge Elasmosaur has graced the cover of Canada's stamps and was voted as British Columbia's Provincial Fossil in 2019. This honour has the Puntledge Elasmosaur cosied up to other provincial symbols and emblems that include the Pacific Dogwood, Jade, the Steller's Jay, Western Red Cedar, Spirit Bear and Pacific Salmon.
The runner-up for BC's Provincial Fossil was Shonisaurus sikanniensis, a massive 21-metre ichthyosaur found in Triassic outcrops in northern British Columbia. That beauty is a worthy reminder of what hunted in our ancient oceans some 220 million years ago.
Since that first moment of discovery, many wonderful events transpired. In the Fall of 1991, Mike Trask was teaching a course on palaeontology at the North Island College.
Heidi Henderson, Mike Trask & Adam Melzac, BCPA Symposium |
Within minutes of their search, Joe found a few small articulated vertebrae that we now know to be the type specimen of the mosasaur, Kourisodon puntledgensis. That find, along with some of the other paleontological goodies from the area, prompted the formation of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society from an idea to a registered society in 1992. By 1993 membership had grown from a dozen to 250.
In 1992, the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society passed a motion to encourage the formation of a provincial umbrella group to act as an advocate to promote interaction amongst various paleontological organizations. Through the efforts of Mike Trask, Dan Bowen, Rolf Ludvigsen and others, the first meeting of the Board of Directors of the B.C. Paleontological Alliance was held in 1993 and a BCPA Symposium held every two years thereafter.
If you like podcasts, check out the Fossil Huntress — Palaeo Sommelier Podcast at https://anchor.fm/fossil-huntress
Fossil Huntress Geeky Goodness on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUerL9urNX8fHb6nHc_vrBQ