Gathered in the parking lot at the Stanley Glacier trailhead in Kootenay National Park, 12 of us took turns sharing our reasons for participating in Parks Canada’s new interpretive hike, titled Stanley Glacier: Kootenay Fossils Revealed.
Anne and Pascale, two women from France, explained they were great fans of Jean-Bernard Caron, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).
A native of France, Caron studied different aspects of Burgess Shale creatures for both his Masters’ thesis and his PhD project. In 2008, Caron led a three-week expedition to the Stanley Glacier Burgess Shale deposits in search of fossils.
The area had been previously visited by ROM researchers in 1989 and 1996, but the geology of the area had not been sufficiently studied, leaving the origin of fossils found there unknown. The 2008 expedition was wildly successful, tracing the thin strata from which fossils had been collected for several kilometres, showing it to be part of the same Stephen Formation as that in the historic Burgess Shale deposits at the Walcott Quarry and Mount Stephen Fossil Beds sites in Yoho National Park.
Among the 1,000 specimens collected in 2008, the team discovered eight species new to science. Among the many species that were already known, similarities were determined between the ecological communities of different sites. The Stanley Glacier site clearly demonstrated to paleontologists that new Burgess Shale-type fossils still exist to be discovered more than a century after Charles Doolittle Walcott, a specialist on Cambrian trilobites and brachiopods, famously discovered the Yoho Burgess Shale in 1909.
As we prepared for our hike, Benjamin from Vancouver said he was on something of a Burgess Shale blitz, as he’d signed on to join a guided interpretive hike to the Walcott Quarry in Yoho the following day.
But it was Paul, one of a group of five from The Netherlands, who explained his interest most enthusiastically.
“Because fossils are cool!” Paul said.
On our seven-hour, 12-kilometre hike - shorter and less strenuous than treks to the Yoho sites - it didn’t take long for all of us to echo his sentiments.
Thanks to our amiable and exceptionally knowledgeable interpreter, Sharon Morgan, a three-decade veteran of Kootenay National Park, our hike progressed along the moderate Stanley Glacier trail like a captivating outdoor classroom.
Ascending through forest fire regrowth from a 1968 blaze, where charred stumps and open slopes were festooned with bright green shrubs, crimson Indian paintbrush, fleabane, columbine and sunshine-yellow arnica, Morgan explained how that area of Kootenay Park earned its Lightning Alley moniker. At one of our periodic stops, she described how post-fire a mountain slope is gradually re-populated by plants, insects, birds, small mammals and, eventually larger ones, each one successively attracting the next.
But the fire, she added, helped lead paleontologists to discover the Stanley Glacier Burgess Shale and, more recently, another site at nearby Marble Canyon, as burned out trees opened up the views into the upper valleys.
“It made finding the new Burgess Shale site easier because the fire had burned everything off,” Morgan said, adding that in 2008, she accompanied the ROM team as they hunted for fossils.
“They knew there would be Burgess Shale deposits on the talus slopes,” she said. “Within five minutes I had found a fossil I wasn’t sure I’d seen before. I showed it to Caron and he wasn’t sure he’d seen it before either. I was very thrilled to do that.”
As we reached the talus slopes at the base of the Stanley Guardwall, or, as it’s known to the Rockies’ ice and mixed climbers who’ve established numerous routes on the vertical cliffs, the Stanley Headwall, Morgan led us off-trail onto the field of rocks, reminding us to be sure our footing was solid as we walked on loose boulders and stones.
“There are fossils everywhere around us,” Morgan said. “The flat orange rocks are the best ones. Go ahead and look.”
We dispersed across the field, walking slowly with our heads down and picking up promising pieces. The scene resembled an instant birthday party scavenger hunt; the only thing missing was a cake and pińata. But then, the cliffs above us, with different formations layered like a cake, had already exploded their 505-million-year-old goodies eons ago.
“Looking for fossils is like a treasure hunt,” Morgan said.
Within a surprisingly few minutes, Pascale brought a long, thin slab of rock to Morgan for her assessment.
“Oh yes, that’s a fossil for sure,” Morgan said with excitement. “See this, it’s the head of a trilobite.”
Trilobite, she explained, means three lobes of a body.
One after another everyone brought rocks to Morgan who greeted them with repeated cries of “Oh yes!” as she traced her finger over each find, describing its identifying features.
What makes the Burgess Shale deposits so special – and so significant – she explained, is the abundance and diversity of well-preserved soft-bodied creatures that document the first appearance of many of life forms that exist on Earth today.
“It’s very exciting for evolutionary biologists to study the Burgess Shale,” Morgan said.
Picking up a flat grey stone the size of a drink coaster, I turned it over. A long, skinny impression left a slightly raised form on the surface, one end extending into what resembled a pair of alien antennae.
Like a school student eager to impress the teacher, I showed it to Morgan, who greeted me with the magic words.
“That’s definitely a fossil,” Morgan said. “It could be algae, or it could be a kind of worm. It’s probably a worm; it looks like we can see something in its gut. And that looks like some kind of head thing. I’m going to put it in the special box.”
The special box?
Earlier this season, Parks Canada flew a large, heavy metal chest to the site. Kept securely locked, the box contains rare and especially good fossil specimens, which we all viewed. During the course of the interpretive tours, which are new this summer, Parks staff add any unfamiliar or unusual fossils to the collection in the box for the ROM experts to examine. It is illegal to remove fossils from any national park site. The best finds are brought to the ROM in Toronto, where they belong to all Canadians.
Thus far, eight species of creatures new to science have been discovered at the Stanley Glacier site, including Stanleycaris hirpex, an anomalocaridid with a frontal appendage bearing double-pointed dorsal spines, found in 2010. It was named for the Glacier’s namesake, Frederick Arthur Stanley, Canada’s sixth Governor General for whom the coveted hockey trophy is also named. Many Burgess Shale fossils are named for the lakes and mountains of the Canadian Rockies where they were found.
In 2012, the Marble Canyon site yielded a brand new species of Leanchoilia. Overall, 12 species new to science have been discovered at Marble Canyon, and the site has the potential to be as significant, if not more so, than the Walcott Quarry.
And participants on Parks’ guided tours have the opportunity to discover their very own namesake fossil.
Martelingia? Lynncelloria? That would be cool!
Stanley Glacier: Kootenay Fossils Revealed tours run every Saturday and Monday until Sept. 1. To learn more, visit www.parkscanada.gc.ca/BurgessShale
Reservations are necessary. Visit reservations.parkscanada.gc.ca or call 1-877-737-3783.
Visit visit burgess-shale.rom.on.ca to view the ROM’s fossil gallery.
