Nothing says Happy 2022 like free prizes. Thank you to each and every one of you who spent time with me in 2021. It is time to wrap up the year and welcome in 2022. I wish you health, happiness and many fossils.... perhaps as prizes. That's right. It is time to celebrate you! We're starting off 2022 with some great giveaways. Head on over to the ARCHEA YouTube Channel to learn how you could add a few nice fossils, some collecting gear and oodles of tasty fossil goodness to your collection in 202...
Dec 29, 2021•3 min•Season 6Ep. 87
Love the Wild: Moose. One of the most impressive mammals of the Pacific Northwest and the largest living member of the deer family are Moose. They are taller than everyone you know and weighs more than your car. You may encounter them lumbering solo along the edge of rivers and lakes, taking a refreshing swim or happily snacking on short grasses, water plants, woody shrubs and pinecones. You can often see them in Canada and some of the northern regions of the USA going about their business of ea...
Nov 08, 2021•11 min•Season 5Ep. 85
Fossil Field Trip to the Cretaceous Capilano Three Brothers Formation — Vancouver has a spectacular mix of mountains, forests, lowlands, inlets and rivers all wrapped lovingly by the deep blue of the Salish Sea. When we look to the North Shore, the backdrop is made more spectacular by the Coast Mountains with a wee bit of the Cascades tucked in behind. If you were standing on the top of the Lion's Gate Bridge looking north you would see the Capilano Reservoir is tucked in between the Lions to th...
Nov 08, 2021•8 min•Season 5Ep. 84
The islands have gone by many names. To the people who call the islands home, Haida Gwaii means Island of the People , it is a shortened version of an earlier name, Haadala Gwaii-ai, or taken out of concealment. Back at the time of Nangkilslas, it was called Didakwaa Gwaii , or “shoreward country.” By any name, the islands are a place of beauty and spirit and enjoy a special place in both the natural and supernatural world. Haida oral history traces the lineage of their families back to the ocea...
Nov 01, 2021•11 min•Season 5Ep. 83
Fly with me over to Austria in Europe to visit the Hallstatt Limestones. These are the world's richest Triassic ammonite outcrops. Along with diversified cephalopod fauna — orthoceratids, nautiloids, ammonoids — we also see gastropods, bivalves, especially the late Triassic pteriid bivalve Halobia (the halobiids), brachiopods, crinoids and a few corals. We also see a lovely selection of microfauna represented. For microfauna, we see conodonts, foraminifera, sponge spicules, radiolaria, floating ...
Oct 23, 2021•9 min•Season 5Ep. 82
Fossil Collecting in the islands of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada. The mist-shrouded islands of Haida Gwaii are at the western edge of the continental shelf and form part of Wrangellia, an exotic terrane of former island arcs, which also includes Vancouver Island, parts of western mainland British Columbia and southern Alaska. This is a trip that takes some level of planning but is well-worth every moment. I consider a visit to these sacred islands a "trip of a lifetime." And if you are ...
Oct 22, 2021•11 min•Season 5Ep. 81
If you are planning a fossil field trip to Harrison Lake, this is the episode for you! We'll talk about getting there. What to bring and what you'll find. Drive the 30 km up Forestry Road #17, stopping just past Hale Creek at 49.5° N, 121.9° W: paleo-coordinates 42.5° N, 63.4° W, on the west side of Harrison Lake. You'll see Long Island to your right. The first of the yummy fossil exposures are just north of Hale Creek on the west side of the lake on the west side of the road. Drive just past th...
Oct 20, 2021•24 min•Season 5Ep. 80
Welcome to Season Five of the Fossil Huntress Podcast. If you love palaeontology, you will love this stream. Ammonites, trilobites, you’ll find them all here. Think of it as dead sexy science for your ears. Have a listen!
Oct 20, 2021•26 sec•Season 1Ep. 1
Visiting the Great Bear Rainforest takes planning and is well worth the trip. You will want to book a guide to lead you through this 6.4 million hectare wilderness on British Columbia's north and central coasts. I recommend searching www.indigenousbc.com for some wonderful knowledgeable First Nation partners on your excursion. This is a journey, an experience you will never forget, so savour every part. As you enter your footfalls are muffled by lush undergrowth, a crush of salal, fallen needles...
Oct 18, 2021•11 min•Season 5Ep. 79
In the late 1930s, our understanding of the transition of fish to tetrapods — and the eventual jump to modern vertebrates — took an unexpected leap forward. The evolutionary a'ha came from a single partial fossil skull found on the shores of a riverbank in Eastern Canada. Meet the Stegocephalian, Elpistostege watsoni, an extinct genus of finned tetrapodomorphs that lived during the Late Givetian to Early Frasnian of the Late Devonian — 382 million years ago. Elpistostege watsoni — perhaps the si...
Oct 16, 2021•18 min•Season 5Ep. 78
The Oregon Coast on the western edge of the USA is a wonderful place to collect fossils. The area has been known for its wonderful fossil fauna since the 1830s. Here we find middle Miocene (along with a wee bit of Eocene) outcrops with delicious fossil whale bone, fish teeth, turtle shell, and a magnificent assortment of molluscs — the gastropods Chlorostome pacificum, Turritella oregonensis, Crepidula, Cryptontica oregonensis, Polinices canalis, Neverita, Sinum scopulosum and the large and love...
Sep 02, 2021•12 min•Season 4Ep. 77
High up in the Canadian Rocky Mountains there are mysteries more than half a billion years old. These are the outcrops of the Burgess Shale Biota — more than 150 species that provide a window into life in our Cambrian seas. Charles Doolittle Walcott will be forever remembered for his extraordinary discovery of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of Yoho National Park in southeastern British Columbia — delivering to the world one of the most important biota of soft-bodied organisms in the fossil re...
Jul 06, 2021•15 min•Season 4Ep. 76
Gentoo Penguins with their black, white natural colouring akin to formal wear — are some of my favourite animals. They are foraging predators — dining on crustaceans, fish and squid in the cold nearshore waters of the Antarctic Peninsula, Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Sandwich Islands. South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and the Falklands are inhospitable British Overseas Territories in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The first scientific description of these romantic seabirds was done ...
Jun 20, 2021•6 min•Season 4Ep. 75
We owe a huge nod of gratitude to the wee photosynthetic microbes known as cyanobacteria for their work in helping to create the first oxygen to enter our atmosphere and make you and I — & indeed all life on Earth — possible. When the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, it was an inhospitable place. Even with a Sun some 25 per cent weaker than it is today, ours was a molten world that needed to undergo a long period of cooling before the conditions for life would arise. And arise they did. O...
May 30, 2021•7 min•Season 3Ep. 74
When I was little, maybe 5 or 6 years old, I struck gold! Well, it wasn't real gold, but I was most convinced. Someone had dumped a tailings pile near the woods where I lived and in the sun, those crushed pieces of rock sparkled. I had already been bitten by the love of minerals and fossils and so naturally I filled my pockets and brought as much home as a youngster can carry. Where I was told that it was Fool's Gold. But, still... it was so compelling and just so gold-like. So, secretly I conti...
May 27, 2021•8 min•Season 3Ep. 73
One of the most delightful palaeontologists to grace our Earth was José Fernando Bonaparte (14 June 1928 – 18 February 2020). He was an Argentinian paleontologist who you'll know as the discoverer of some of Argentina's iconic dinosaurs — Carnotaurus (the "Bull" dinosaur we've talked about in a previous episode), along with Amargasaurus, Abelisaurus, Argentinosaurus and Noasaurus. His first love was mammals and over the course of his career, he unearthed the remains of some of the first South Am...
May 20, 2021•6 min•Season 3Ep. 72
The Great Karoo was formed in a vast inland basin starting 320 million years ago, at a time when that part of Gondwana which would eventually become Africa, lay over the South Pole. The Karoo records a wonderful time in our evolutionary history when the world was inhabited by interesting amphibians and mammal-like reptiles — including the apex predators of the day, the Gorgons. Gorgons or Gorgonopsia were sabre-toothed therapsids who roamed our ancient Earth from the Middle to Upper Permian — 26...
May 12, 2021•16 min•Season 3Ep. 71
Marble Canyon in British Columbia, Canada is a lovely place to hike. Here you can see some of the oldest freshwater stromatolites on Earth and one of our oldest lifeforms. The canyon's name comes from the brilliant limestone of its walls. The bedrock is microcrystalline limestone (sedimentary rock) rather than marble (metamorphic rock). The rocks found here tell of the forming of British Columbia. Marble Canyon was once part of a chain of Pacific Islands originating far to the southwest of the c...
Mar 21, 2021•5 min•Season 3Ep. 70
Australia has always held appeal as a country with weird and wonderful wildlife. This is as true today as it was back in the Pleistocene — 2.5 million years ago to 11,500 years ago.
Mar 05, 2021•11 min•Season 2Ep. 69
Plate tectonics looks at Earth’s outer layer. It is made up of large, moving pieces called plates. All of Earth’s land and water sit on these plates. The plates are made of solid rock. Under the plates is a weaker layer of partially melted rock. The plates are constantly moving over this weaker layer. Think of the Earth as an egg. The outer hard shell is the lithosphere or "hard rock" and the next layer or egg white is the mantle. The central core has two parts: the outer is more liquid and the ...
Mar 02, 2021•8 min•Season 2Ep. 68
Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its colour and natural beauty since the Neolithic. We find amber around the globe, generally in rocks that are Cretaceous or younger. Tree resin or sap is essential to a tree. Roots take up water and nutrients, and these need to be spread throughout the tree. Sap is the viscous liquid that carries these yummy minerals and nutrients to areas where they are most needed. Tree leaves produce simple sugars that must get transported through ...
Feb 21, 2021•8 min•Season 2Ep. 67
One of the classic Vancouver Island fossil localities is the Santonian-Maastrichtian, Upper Cretaceous Haslam Formation Motocross Pit near Brannen Lake, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The quarry is no longer active as such though there is a busy little gravel quarry a little way down the road closer to Ammonite falls near Benson Creek Falls. Today it is an active Motocross site. Beneath the crisscrossing tire tracks, it remains one of the classic localities of the Nanaimo Group. We find well...
Feb 14, 2021•8 min•Season 2Ep. 66
Koala, Phasscolarctos cinereus , are truly adorable marsupials native to Australia. These cuddly "teddy bears" are not bears at all. Koalas belong to a group of mammals known as marsupials. Fossil remains of Koala-like animals have been found dating back to 25 million years ago. As the climate changed and Australia became drier, ancient vegetation evolved to what we know as eucalyptus, becoming the Koalas food source. Koalas have pouches on their bellies where their newborns develop. Their wee n...
Feb 13, 2021•7 min•Season 2Ep. 65
Bears are one of my favourite mammals. Had they evolved in a slightly different way, we might well have chosen them as pets instead of the dogs so many of us have in our lives today. For them and for us, I think things worked out for the best that they enjoy the rugged wild country they call home. Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide va...
Feb 05, 2021•7 min•Season 2Ep. 64
The upper Oligocene Sooke Formation that outcrops on southwestern Vancouver Island, British Columbia is a wonderful place to collect and especially good for families. As well as amazing west coast scenery, the beach site outcrop has a lovely soft matrix with well-preserved fossil molluscs, often with the shell material preserved (Clark and Arnold, 1923). While the site has been known since the 1890s, my first trip here was in the early 1990s as part of a Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS)...
Jan 31, 2021•10 min•Season 2Ep. 63
This is a tale of friendship, tragic loss and fossil bees — and an introduction to one of the most delightful paleo enthusiasts to ever walk the planet — Rene Savenye. Rene and I enjoyed many years of waxing poetic about our shared love of palaeontology and natural history. Rene was a mountain goat in the field, stalking the hills in his signature red t-shirt. He was tremendously knowledgeable about the natural world and delighted in it. For many years, he was Chair of the White Rock and Surrey ...
Jan 28, 2021•8 min•Season 2Ep. 62
Part of our ability to date the rock sequences we see in the world and determine which are older and which younger has to do with simple observation. We see that older rocks contain trilobites and a wee bit above those we see ammonites, then clams and oysters in newer sediments. For a long time, this simple observation held us in good stead. We had a relative timescale for the Earth and this allowed us to piece together the biologic and geologic picture much clearer. To understand and date rock ...
Jan 13, 2021•7 min•Season 2Ep. 61
Our World has shifted dramatically over time. Our great land masses and oceans have moved, grown, shrunk, come together and pulled apart over the Earth's history. It is the fossils that have helped shape our understanding of this tremendous story of upheaval. Part of understanding fossils has been simple observation. We find fossilized shells on mountain tops — quite unexpectedly — and this makes us question how this could be possible. As we learn about plate tectonics and palaeogeography, we al...
Jan 12, 2021•9 min•Season 2Ep. 60
Alberta is a gorgeous province in western Canada that borders British Columbia & Saskatchewan. Here you can see the glorious Canadian Rocky Mountains, Beautiful Wildlife & the Badlands with their Dinosaur remains at Dinosaur Provincial Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site near the town of Brooks), and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller. Dinosaur Provincial Park contains some of the most important fossil specimens discovered from the “Age of Dinosaurs” period of Earth’s...
Jan 10, 2021•10 min•Season 2Ep. 59
Brown Bank in the North Sea is a treasure trove of Miocene and Pleistocene Fossil Mammal material. It is also a great place to unearth archaeological remains. Until sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age, between 8-10,000 years ago, an area of land connected Great Britain to Scandinavia and the continent. Here our relatives lived their lives, hunted local animals and all species left remains behind. This region is now underwater in the Brown Bank section of the North Sea. The North Sea i...
Jan 04, 2021•9 min•Season 2Ep. 58
