Etobicoke Creek delivers a home run in the bottom of the 9th

[markjw]

I visited Etobicoke Creek again. This time it was near Evans Avenue at a recreational park. There was a softball game going on...the waif thought it might be something called 'rounders' and was intrigued to see how it progressed...I had to drag her the extra 30 meters to the creekbed.

 

Orthocone nautiloids were scattered all over the place, embedded in rocks. The 'she' wanted to find a portion of several segments she could carry home...I get those, but she's never found one. (She eventually brought me a small trilobite, the first I've ever seen). The shell imprints were wonderful, but sometimes worn, and the same species as usual (Bysonnychia and generic bivalves). There were a couple of petrified sponge-like segments, but no good bryozoan colonies.

 

It is fun to find nautiloids because you can sometimes find more than one in a rock (today we tied the record: 4!). Other times they are damaged so you can examine the interior structure. We filled my canvas bag quickly, serenaded by the sound of the softballs being hit off the bat.

 

Finally, near the end of our expedition,  the waif saw a segmented rock and tugged it out of the gravel...a portion of a monster cephalapod! Biggest of this genus I've ever seen...and two smaller ones had sheltered in the shell and perished there.

What a great time we had.

[Monica]

Great finds, Mark - congrats to you and your wife!

 

Do you think the large cephalopod chunk could be a piece of Endoceras?  I think they can be found throughout Ontario's Ordovician rock, including the Georgian Bay Formation.

[markjw]

10 hours ago, Monica said:

Great finds, Mark - congrats to you and your wife!

 

Do you think the large cephalopod chunk could be a piece of Endoceras?  I think they can be found throughout Ontario's Ordovician rock, including the Georgian Bay Formation.

Interesting thought! I imagined that genus to have rings with slight concavities, or a little dip in the middle. Basing this on the Gull River rocks, and on Alice E. Wilson's Ottawa area catalogue. But I am shakey on IDs, so it is a promising possibility.

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

P.S. Wonder why Hessin is so cursory about Georgian Bay formation? Seems not to have photos of many of our types.

[Monica]

36 minutes ago, markjw said:

P.S. Wonder why Hessin is so cursory about Georgian Bay formation? Seems not to have photos of many of our types.

 

I can't be sure, but I imagine his book focuses on where he personally collected most of the time, and since I think he's from the Cobourg area, perhaps he focused more on the fauna found in the rocks further east of us.  Just a thought.