Fossil Huntress — Palaeo Sommelier

A cool morning breeze keeps the mosquitoes down as we pack our kayaks and gear for today’s paddling journey. It is day four of our holiday, with two days driving up from Vancouver to Cache Creek, past the Eocene insect and plant site at McAbee, the well-bedded Permian limestone near Marble Canyon and onto Bowron Provincial Park, a geologic gem near the gold rush town of Barkerville.  The init...

Plant fossils are found coast-to-coast in Canada, from 45-million-year-old mosses in British Columbia to fossil forests on Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere islands in the Canadian Arctic. The early angiosperms developed advantages over contemporary groups — rapid reproductive cycles —  which made them highly efficient, adapting well to "weedy" growth. These modifications, including flowers for the...

The earliest flowering plants show up in the fossil record 130 million years ago. These beauties became the dominant type of forest plant by about 90 million years ago. One of their number, the genus Crocus, is a particular favourite of mine. Crocus — the plural of which is crocuses or croci — is a genus of flowering plants in the iris family and includes 90 species of perennials growing from corm...

Hadrosaurs or Duck-Billed Dinosaurs were a very successful group of plant-eaters that thrived throughout western Canada and around the globe during the Late Cretaceous. Hadrosaurs lived as part of a herd, dining on pine needles, horsetails, twigs and flowering plants. They are ornithischians — an extinct clade of mainly herbivorous dinosaurs characterized by a pelvic structure superficially s...

In 2000, Mark Turner and Daniel Helm were tubing down the rapids of Flatbed Creek just below Tumbler Ridge. As they walked up the shoreline excitement began to build as they quickly recognized a series of regular depressions as dinosaur footprints. Their discovery spurred an infusion of tourism and research in the area and the birth of the Peace Region Palaeontology Society and Dinosaur Centre. Th...

Say hello to Ferrisaurus sustutensis —  “A new leptoceratopsid dinosaur from Maastrichtian-aged deposits of the Sustut Basin, northern British Columbia, Canada." You may recall Dr. Victoria Arbour, curator of palaeontology at the Royal BC Museum from her work on ankylosaurs & that interesting specimen from Hornby Island thought to be a pterosaur but further study revealed to be a saurodon...

Hornby is a glorious place to collect. The island is beautiful in its own right and the fossils from here often keep some of their original shell or nacre which makes them quite fetching. At this 72-million-year-old beach site off the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, we find ammonites, gastropods, shark teeth, marine reptiles, birds, fossil crabs, baculites and other bivalve fossils. Many o...

Were Dinosaurs Warm-Blooded or Cold-Blooded? Let's explore the clues they left behind to see if we can solve this mystery. Dinosaurs had relatively small brains compared to their body size — a mark of a cold-blooded animal. They were also the ancestors of birds — warm-blooded animals. In this episode, the Fossil Huntress looks at posture, brain size, predator vs. prey relationships to unravel the...

The Fernie ammonite, Titanites occidentalis , from outcrops on Coal Mountain near Fernie, British Columbia, Canada. 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. 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...

The East Kootenay region on the south-eastern edge of British Columbia is a land of colossal mountains against a clear blue sky. I've been heading to the Cranbrook and Fernie area since the early 1990s. My interest is the local geology and fossil history that these rocks have to tell. I'm also drawn to the warm and welcoming locals who share a love for the land and palaeontological treasures that...

If fossil fuels are made from fossils, are oil, gas and coal made from dead dinosaurs? Well, no, but they are made from fossils. We do not heat our homes or run our cars on dead hadrosaurs. Instead, we burn very old plants and algae.  It sounds much less exciting, but the process by which algae and other plant life soak up the Sun's energy, store it for millions of years, then give it all up...

A bright, beautiful young mind asked the question, "does Earth's mass decrease when we burn fossil fuels? And if it does, is it measurable? Do we know how much of the Earth’s mass has been lost so far?"  Well, Melaina, the Earth’s mass does decrease when fossil fuels are burnt. But not in the sense you were probably imagining, and only to a very, very small degree. Hear more about the geeky s...

The Fossil Huntress shares her passion for palaeontology. Fueled by curiosity and a love of the natural world, she shares about growing up looking for rocks, minerals and trading beads. This led to many years of collecting solo before meeting the folk at the Vancouver Paleontological Society and then becoming Chair of that society for more than a decade. 

Learn about the paleontological history of British Columbia, Canada. While the province holds fossils that span the full spectrum of the geologic time scale, arguably the true beginnings of our passion for paleontology begin with the 1988 find of a large marine reptile along the banks of the Puntledge River near Courtenay, BC. The find was a first for the province and for Mike Trask who has gone o...

We sometimes find fossils preserved by pyrite. They are prized as much for their pleasing gold colouring as they are for their scientific value as windows into the past. Sometimes folk add a coating of brass to increase the aesthetic appeal. Though this practice is frowned upon in paleontological communities. Pyrite is a brass-yellow mineral with a bright metallic lustre. It has a chemical composi...

Ammonites / Ammonoids — Ammonoids are 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 — octopus, squid, and cuttlefish — than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species. The earliest ammonites appear during the Devonian, and the last...

Are you ready to head out Fossil Collecting and wondering where to go? There are likely fossils beneath your feed or within a few hours of where you are right now. If you are out fossil hunting, look for fossils in sedimentary rock — sandstone, limestone and shale — where the surface has been eroded away or scraped clean by a glacier, cleaved by road cuts, construction sites, rivers or the ocean....

Are you planning on heading out on a fossil field trip? Hear what the Fossil Huntress like to bring with her out in the field. From eye protection to filing a trip plan, this will get you started on your fossil field trip plan of awesome. For resources and suggestions on fossil field trip gear, visit www.fossilhuntress.blogspot.com. Head to the section on Paleontological Essentials in the right-ha...

Learn about Fossil Collecting and the law. You can find a link to BC Fossil Resources on the Fossil Huntress Blog at fossilhuntress.blogspot.com What are the laws around collecting and ownership? Fossil collectors are considered custodians of the fossils they find and collect.  Fossils found on Crown land are the property of the Crown; they cannot be sold or exported outside of British Columb...

Just what is a fossil and how do they form? How old does something need to be to be considered a fossil? Trees, insects, snails and dinosaurs can all become fossils. Sometimes it is the remains of the living organism we find — as teeth or bones. Sometimes it is footprint or scuff mark — a trace they have left behind.  

If you love paleontology, you’ll love this stream. Ammonites, trilobites, dinosaurs — you’ll find them all here.