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I have had multiple trips this summer to my favourite localities in Hamilton, Ontario and Toronto. I dont think the winter of this season was severe to render a great deal of erosion since I couldnt pick out a lot of material surface wise. My first trip is at the Niagara Escarpment of Hamilton in which I visit many formations of the Cataract and Clinton Groups. Always keep an eye out on your overhead! These rocks of the Whirlpool sandstone (Cataract Group) on top of the Queenston formation can drop on any unsuspecting person! Below are some partial pentamerid brachiopods Pentameroides subrectus of the Reynales formation at Hamilton, Ontario. They look like pecans. My next summer trips were at the Humber River area in Toronto. I visited my favourite spots to check out what I can surface collect, since I was carrying light materials with me on those days without a hammer and chisel. Both the formations exposed at the Humber River and Mimico Creek belong to the late Ordovician Georgian Bay formation. And recently this Saturday I was at Mimico Creek in Toronto revisiting my old hunting grounds. I came across a nice Treptoceras crebiseptum slab, which I chiseled out of the shale with my hammer- before it fractured into many pieces. I also found a nice trace fossil which had a Cruziana sp. on it, but it had some oil grease on it for some reason. Usually, if the winter was severely cold, a portion of an exposure like this would be falling down to the bottom, revealing surface-collecting fossils. An interesting trace fossil i found but chose not to keep. In situ of the Treptoceras plate I chose to extract. Below is the nice trace fossil i decided to keep. Im a very picky person when collecting and I only the best specimens I can find. Another entirely separate exposure at Mimico Creek that I visited on the same day.

Hello guys, Summer is nearing its end so I decided to go and hunt the Niagara Escarpment of Hamilton, Ontario. The exposures I checked out at a creek ranged from the Cataract Group (early Silurian with the Whirlpool formation at its base and it sharply cuts the Queenston formation) all the way to the Clinton Group. Here is a pic of the Manitoulin formation, which is a part of the Cataract Group and is above the Whirlpool sandstone/formation. Above the Manitoulin formation is the mostly shale dominated Cabot Head formation. The Manitoulin and Cabot Head formations will contain fossils like this rock below. On these rocks one can find many small rugose corals and brachiopods. I move up stream to come across the base of an exposure with much rubble that comes from the Grimsby formation (Cataract Group) all the way to a portion of the Lockport Group. This stretch also covers the Clinton Group. A rock from the Rochester formation. This below is an interesting trace fossil as it reminds me of the Bergaueria trace fossils I used to find in the Georgian Bay formation of Toronto, Ontario. This one below belongs to the Cabot Head formation. If anyone thinks I should have kept this trace fossil, let me know what you think. New material is always falling at the base so it can be a nice ground to hunt for fresh material, even though some Silurian formations in this part of Ontario can be unfossiliferous. The creek ran on trickle since it is summer and made it easy to explore the creek. One of the finds I came across was this slab of pentameriid brachiopods (Pentameroides subrectus?) from the Reynales formation of the Clinton Group. In as much as I wanted to take home the entire slab of steinkerns, I decide to just smash it (as I am limited in space) to keep the more complete valves as finding nice complete valves from this formation is hard to find in my experience. But for real, this slab was also not eroded, had nice detail and would have made a nice display piece have I got the space. I also have the tendency to keep the best specimens I could get my hands on when I go fossil hunting at my locales. Here is a rock I decided to take home from the slab with at least two complete valves of pentameriid brachiopod. Here is one of the valves I took home from smashing the slab. Smashing the rock was hard and bits of it went flying as I tried to smash it up. The Reynales formation is mostly dolomitic limestone and these pentameriid brachiopods I took home also had pyrite on them.

Hi guys so today I came across a new shop that popped up in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Anyway long story short I bought what appears to be Silurian coral fossil that originated somewhere on the Niagara Escarpment in Ontario or the State of New York. This fossil came from a peculiar museum that liquidated its collections in Niagara of Ontario and closed but the fossil didnt come with a label. Can anyone help me pin down what it is? I have never encountered a fossil like this on the Niagara Escarpment of Hamilton, Ontario. Also this was being sold along with other/what appears to be Silurian corals from the local area of the Niagara region of Ontario/New York.

Dear editorial staff, I’m not sure if this is permissible in this format. If it is can you edit the first page to stand upright? I am still an amateur! What I want to say is: This is so exciting to me because the fossils I find around here all indicate to me trauma, from tidal events! These events most certainly directed evolutionary change and development, including increasing the oxygen levels in the water much the same as filters do so in an aquarium. Where I live feels like an Paleozoic, evolutionary test tube. ARTICLE LINK

Just found today in my back yard. First daylight in 430 million years. It was found about two metres down. We are working on a house project. I just washed it off in the kitchen sink. My question is what would you do next? I have been thinking about prep work in general, I like it, should I just enjoy it as it is?

I made a trip today to Albion Falls in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada by public transportation. Albion Falls is a classical waterfall that cascades over the Niagara Escarpment in Hamilton, Ontario and is 19 metres high. The waters flow north along the Redhill Valley as Redhill Creek to empty to Lake Ontario. Once a popular tourist destination, climbing up the waterfall is not allowed anymore due to paramedics having to rescue irresponsible tourists who have hurt and died from slipping and falling. I mostly ended up checking out the Grimsby Formation which is nicely exposed near the waterfall. There are walls of exposure as the water meanders down from the falls, revealing nice explorable spots. The Grimsby Formation is part of the Cataract Group and dates to the early Silurian period. The Grimsby Formation is not popular as it is not fossiliferous. I’ve had better luck finding fossil animals in the Manitoulin and Cabot Head Formations at the Devil’s Punchbowl in Hamilton, Ontario. The reddish maroon bottom part of the exposure is the Grimsby Formation. It is mostly red/purple shale mixed with the same coloured sandstones. Here is a pic showing how the Cabot Head Formation of the Cataract Group progresses into the Grimsby Formation.

After going around in Hamilton, Ontario looking for a river/creek to check out the iconic Niagara Escarpment of the city, I decided to check out the Devil’s Punch Bowl which is located in Stoney Creek, Hamilton. Most of the waterfalls located in the old city of Hamilton are out of reach/barricaded/no-go zones with fines for trespassing because of safety reasons. Nearby Albion Falls and other waterfalls like Tiffany and Chedoke in the old city of Hamilton cannot be explored close up because of the tourists and locals that have died and severely injured themselves from falling while on the cascading waterfall. Today I was surprised to realize that the bottom of the Devil’s Punch Bowl was unbarricaded and so off I went to explore it. It seems the only place that tourists and people go to when visiting the Devil’s Punch Bowl is the observation deck at the top of the falls which offers a nice view of the falls. This is evident as I noticed that there was barely any trash at the bottom of the gorge and down river. The height of this falls is 37 metres. Today the fall is dry with no water. Theres a large Timmy’s cup on the bottom right for size comparison (it isn’t mine though!). There are various formation in this rock exposure of the falls and assigning loose rocks from the ground to the right formation can be a hassle.

Yesterday and today I scouted two waterfalls on the Niagara Escarpment in Hamilton, Ontario. I only intended to check on what the winter has eroded away but I ended up finding some small fossils. The first waterfall I visited was the Devil’s Punchbowl. I only visited the lower falls (the one that runs over the Whirlpool Formation) of the Punchbowl as the creek of the fall has yet to dry up from warm weather. I ended up finding some small brachiopods and an orthocone on the Manitoulin Formation of this fall. Wow, I dont think an orthocone has been reported on the Manitoulin Formation at this locality yet. I might have to go back to those papers. I think this could be a Michelinoceras sp.

Hi, can anyone lead me on determining this species of brachiopod? This brachiopod originates from the Reynales Formation, Clinton Group of Hamilton, Ontario from the Niagara Escarpment. A name I found for this shell is Stricklandia canadensis when I was reading a document about the Escarpment, though when I went to the fossiilid.info and the fossilworks websites there is no mention of the species. I began to think this could be a Stricklandia lens. The shell in the centre is approximately 4 cm long.

Found this on our bluff, part of Niagara Escarpment, tip of Door County, Wisconsin. Would love any more detail.