British Columbia Paleontology Education Booth at the BC Rock and Gem Show

[palaeopix]

On 6/28/2023 at 9:30 PM, Wrangellian said:

Hi Dan, Long time no see.  Yes that answers a lot, thanks. If you figure out the name of that Devonian formation, pls let me know.

The Ordovician site sounds interesting... I don't think they even mentioned it to us when we were up there.

Here’s a photo of Guy Santucci from Cranbrook with two incredible coiled nautiloids he collected from the Bull River Devonian site.

[Wrangellian]

Wow! I never saw any sign of things like that there.

This is the site down close to the river (along the road) about halfway up the valley?

Edited July 2, 2023 by Wrangellian

[jdp]

20 hours ago, palaeopix said:

I’m not sure. I’ve heard about the Yahatinda finds, but haven’t really looked at the papers yet. The stuff from the Bull River is labeled as Harrogate Formation. I can contact Guy Santucci at the museum to get more information.

 

The current state of the literature is not really satisfactory. The geological work from the 1960s is of reliable quality, but the paleontological work published in 2000 is unfortunately not of high quality: you can't make out much from the photos and most of the identifications are inaccurate, and this unfortunately informs the interpretation of the age of the formation and a bunch of other things. We've made substantial new collections over the past 8 years or so and we're preparing a revision to the fauna. Some of the fossils we've identified are indicative of an older geological age for the formation, which explains the dominance of heterostracan jawless fishes in the formation. However, this is all the Alberta Front Range material, so I don't really have a sense of how this relates to the "Yahatinda" beds in Height of the Rockies. Those might in fact be a separate exposure of something else.

[palaeopix]

On 7/2/2023 at 4:46 PM, Wrangellian said:

Wow! I never saw any sign of things like that there.

This is the site down close to the river (along the road) about halfway up the valley?

Unfortunately those coiled nautiloids are very rare. Small straight nautiloids are a bit less common and three were found on our trip last year. The site is at around the 60km mark (I don’t recall the exact number) along the FSR and the river is visible at the opposite side of the road. I wouldn’t say it’s close because there’s a substantial talus slide between the road and the river. We found numerous brachiopods, bivalves, Gastropoda, corals (including several large horn corals), bryozoans and a couple of small straight nautiloids.

 

The next time you’re in the area you should contact Guy Santucci. He is associated with the museum.

[Wrangellian]

11 hours ago, palaeopix said:

Unfortunately those coiled nautiloids are very rare. Small straight nautiloids are a bit less common and three were found on our trip last year. The site is at around the 60km mark (I don’t recall the exact number) along the FSR and the river is visible at the opposite side of the road. I wouldn’t say it’s close because there’s a substantial talus slide between the road and the river. We found numerous brachiopods, bivalves, Gastropoda, corals (including several large horn corals), bryozoans and a couple of small straight nautiloids.

 

The next time you’re in the area you should contact Guy Santucci. He is associated with the museum.

I would imagine those coiled nautiloids are not common... Anyway that sounds kind of like the site we were at, but not sure it was that far up into the valley (but it was further up than any of the turnoffs to the trilobite sites that we were shown).

Do you mean the Cranbrook museum?