Ammonite Valentine: Fossil Huntress Podcast
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Hello and welcome to the fossil huntress podcast. I hope you guys are all doing well. I wanted to wish each of you a beautiful and happy valentine's day. I'm in Vancouver for it and it's snowy and white here and I thought I would share a little tale of love, both romantic and nostalgic and um some yummy upper cretaceous fossils from Vancouver Island. Mm One of the classic Vancouver Island fossil localities is the Santoni in Maastricht ian upper cretaceous hey slim formation, motorcross pit near Brennan lake in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. So wherever you are in the world, fly with me over to Canada, to her far west coast, to british Columbia. And then we'll go a little ways out into the pacific where we'll find Vancouver Island. And about the center of that island is the town of Nanaimo. I was over in and I know this past year was the beginnings of Covid and so I had planned a bunch of social visits and um did none of them in the end. Um, I did go see my aunt to pick up my father's ashes, which were in an urn in her home with the intention that we would gather as a family and Sprinkle them. But again, that's It was not possible with COVID. So she brought him out to the driveway and set him in the center and backed up. And then I came forward and picked him up and we had a little socially distanced visit. And then I brought him up to the motorcross pit, which is about 10 minutes from their home. And my dad is a bit heavy in an urn, but I put him in my backpack and took him even so because I thought he might like to get out. And about the last time I've been to uh the Haslem formation, outcrops had been with my uncle Doug. And in the in the year that followed, he also passed away. So I told you there were, this was a tale of love, both romantic and nostalgic and I was certainly feeling very nostalgic when I was there this past year. It's a great site, so it's no longer an active Corey but a true motor cross site. So with motorcycle scooting around. Um And even so it's, it remains one of the classic localities of the Nanaimo groups we find well preserved, not a lloyds and ammonites. Um Canada serous, well there's beautiful, big I know ceramic clams and other gastro pods. Um We find deca pods here, um some seeds and plant materials. So it's it's quite an amazing sight. It was john fam who was now vice chair of the Vancouver paleo society who actually originally told me about this locality and john um he's a delightful human being, one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet that you'd be well blessed to know. And he grew up about 15 minutes from the motor cross site and while he was growing up his father and and him used to go there about once a week to poke about and years ago john and dan Bowen and a few other folks we're going to head up to Jurassic point. So john came to pick me up in Vancouver and I overnighted in his parents house in Nanaimo. And I actually stayed in his old bedroom with his early fossil collection. And we spent a couple of hours just poking through each of the fossils and him telling the tales of learning about paleontology and sort of discovering it. I did up a post um on the fossil hunters page on facebook with a photo of one of the ammonites he collected way back in the day. And it was when he was still um prepping with a cold chisel. Which is kind of a brutal way to prep and um a night. But it was delightful to um to walk through a time with him and see his early collection. Um And and share a love of all things paleo and on the romantic side with john fam one of the most beautiful relationships I've ever had. The honor to witness is john and Grace, his childhood sweetheart. And they are now married and I went to that wedding and I have seen the product of that union, two beautiful boys. So it's lovely to see um see them through time and watch that romance blossom into a family and now go out on fossil field trips with john's boys. Which is quite amazing. So there's the romantic piece of this tale when I was walking around has this time last year there was a little bit of snow on the ground, but clear blue skies and the motorcross pit now has some no trespassing signs, but no people were around. So I walked the periphery. So I walked along the ditch and I was looking for the bedrock of the Haslem. About the time these rocks were laid down, they were laid down south of the equator, a small tropical islands. And then they would have rode across the Pacific heading north and slightly east over the past 80 million years to where we find them today, much of what I know about the Nanaimo group. And as I walked the rocks, looking for the bedrock and the fossils found here. I'd learned from Jim Haggard and Peter Ward. So they have done much to increase our understanding of the molest skin fauna of the Nimmo group and personally both personify the kind of charming indiana jones school of rugged manly paleontologists you would picture in popular film professionally. Um Their singular contributions and collaborative efforts have helped shape our understanding of the correlation of the Nanaimo group fauna to those we find in the gulf islands and down in the san juan islands of Washington state and further a field. And their collaborative efforts continue with many of the Vancouver Island paleontological Society members and Van PS members. So it's very nice to see and their work builds on the work of folks like Usher and Matsumoto and Mallory, with a healthy nod to folks like Mueller and Galitzki, um all of whom have helped untangle the bios to trigger fee and the fossil foundations and correlations of this very interesting bit of the world. Fortunately during that walk, I did get to the bedrock of the Haslem and took a couple of photos that I'll share with you in a blog post and also over on facebook. Um But one of the other bits that I really enjoyed here is um the natural uh still living extent fauna and flora. And while I was there, a lovely little stellar XJs, a little fat blue boy followed me from tree to tree making his guttural should call. And constructively. He was timing it to the the strikes of my hammer. Um One of the other bits that's really charming about this area is it's just down the ways from um a night falls, like literally just down the road. Um So you'll be pleased as punch to know that I am a night falls does exist and so does a Jurassic point both of both of which I will, I will post about in a future blog post anyway. I hope you guys have a wonderful day, however you're celebrating it. Um, I plan to build a snowman and put some ammonites in its eyes and maybe make some soup anyway. I hope you guys have a good day and I'll talk to you soon.