More parking lot fossils in Ontario

[markjw]

The quarried rocks at "Gairloch Park" in Oakville were disappointing, but, as usual, the walk to the parking lot did not disappoint. I walked on a nice rock with fossil colonies (maybe they are bryozoans?) and shells.

[markjw]

Meanwhile, the construction at Tannery Park has seen delivery of more fossil-filled rocks, and the movement of construction vehicles has left broken fragments all over the place. I grabbed a piece of the "armour stone" from Elite Stone Quarries in Orillia and it has some 2-3 cm gastropods in it. The smaller (2 cm) green one was found by my wife. It is like a cinnamon bun...flat or concave on one side.

[markjw]

Here is the armour stone

[Wrangellian]

Interesting color on those snails!

Too bad that bryozoan piece was used in the construction...

I saw a few chunks of local shale used in a similar wall here, along with much more durable rock. The shale pieces were already crumbling a couple years after it was built, while the durable volcanic stuff was unchanged. I wondered, whose idea was that??  (The project was cancelled and the wall may not stay long-term)

[markjw]

Wonder why they go green like that?

I should have been more clear...the green images are all the same fossil.

[PaleoNoel]

That's pretty cool. I remember when I went to Montreal in April, the group that was with me viewed the city from the "parc du mont royal" observatory. There were big slabs of stone on the side of the road used for benches and walls that were basically big hashplates with crinoid cross sections, bryozoans and brachiopods. Unfortunately I did not take pictures for whatever reasons.

I also found a piece of a small meg when I was leaving the spoil piles outside the aurora fossil museum back in April 2017. I thought I had the picture of it but after extensive searching I couldn't find the picture for it. I'll post it tomorrow- it was the main reason why I chose to comment on this topic, oh well 

[Ludwigia]

4 hours ago, markjw said:

Wonder why they go green like that?

I should have been more clear...the green images are all the same fossil.

It's probably glauconite

[Monica]

Nice finds!

 

I think the specimen circled in red below is the bivalve Ambonychia radiata - it's fairly common in the Georgian Bay Formation (Upper Ordovician):

 

The other "shells" have a brachiopod look to them, but I'm far from sure.

 

And, yes, I believe all of those other items are branching bryozoans - it's cool to see so many of them concentrated in a small area!!!

 

RE: your gastropod - based on its shape compared to pictures in Hessin's book (South-Central Ontario Fossils), some possibilities are as follows:

Liospira (it's quite flat when looked at from the side)

Trochonema umbilicatum (it's a little less flat when looked at from the side) - Hessin's book states explicitly that this species is found in the Georgian Bay Formation

There are some other possible candidates, but they are more high-spired and (I think!) yours is a little on the low-spire side.  If you want other possible identities for it, though, then just ask!

[markjw]

Thanks for pleasing contributions from Wrangellian and PaleoNoel !!

 

Ludwigia and Monica guided me to further info.

Hessin describes the Gull River formation on p17: "West of Lake Couchiching fossils are coated with a greenish glauconite..."
Google maps shows Elite Stone Quarries, the provider of the Oakville Tannery Park fossils, as 4km west of that lake. So Ludwigia 
has presumably nailed it from afar.

 

Hessin identifies Liospira as occurring primarily in the Gull River formation; Monica sensed this possibility from the shape.

 

Golly, forum contributers are exceedingly perceptive.

 

I went back into the area today, and was just overwhelmed by the sheer volume of spectacular fossils. Wife found a couple of straight-cone nautiloids bigger than I'd ever imagined...wow. But that should be worthy of another post.

[Ludwigia]

14 hours ago, markjw said:

  So Ludwigia has presumably nailed it from afar.

 

Glauconite is a relatively common occurrence in sedimentary layers, so it's quite easy to recognize once you've become familiar with it.