On September 16, a group of 11 volunteers from the Tumbler Ridge Museum (TRMF) were joined by folks from Ridge Rotors and the District of Tumbler Ridge to recover a pair of fossils from near the Wolverine Trackway site.
According to Zena Conlin, Executive Director for TRMF, both specimens contain unique vertebrate trace fossils that have been found nowhere else in the world other than the Peace Region. “Bringing them in to the Tumbler Ridge Museum enables the fossils to be formally described by an international team of palaeontologists, hopefully leading to publication in scientific journals and being placed on exhibit in the Dinosaur Discovery Gallery for residents and visitors to enjoy,” says a release sent out by the museum.
The two rocks were flown out on a long line by helicopter. The largest of the two weighed about 500 kg, while the smaller weighed about 150 kg.
These are not newly discovered fossils. The larger of the two was initially found by Linda Helm in 2021. However, it initially weighed more than 1000 kg, making it too heavy (by over 200 kg) to lift even with Ridge Rotor’s largest helicopter.
So, over the last few months, Geopark geoscientist Roy Rule (assisted by Charles Helm) has been chipping away at the rock to get it down to a much more manageable 500 kg.
Back in 2021 Linda (and Charles’) son Daniel found the second fossil. Helm was actively searching for dinosaur tracks, turning over rocks looking for track samples, finding a pair of unusual dinosaur tracks on the underside of the rock. While they have yet to be identified, they were different from any of the tracks found so far around Tumbler Ridge.
“The abundance of rare fossil material that is continually being discovered in and around Tumbler Ridge is truly incredible,” says Conlin. “We’re looking forward to sharing more about this recent recovery when our team of global researchers have more answers.”
This summer’s low water allowed volunteers to move the samples by hand away from the cliff to a place where they could be retrieved safely by a helicopter with a long line.
The samples were flown to a staging area nearby, where they were loaded onto the District’s picker truck and driven to the museum, where they were unloaded in the museum’s compound.
Conlin says the operation was made possible by a $5000 donation from LaPrairie Crane. Scott LaPrairie, President & CEO, LaPrairie Crane says the company is a big supporter of the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation. “LaPrairie Crane is proud to be a longstanding supporter of the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation and we were more than happy to support them with their most recent fossil collection in Northern BC. The contributions that the Tumbler Ridge Museum and their dedicated, local, staff make to the town and to the scientific community is far-reaching in its significance. It is important to us that we support the communities that our employees live and work in, and we look forward to hearing more about this new find.”
For more information on this and other discoveries, visit www.trmf.ca.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.