HORNBY ISLAND FOSSILS

Diplomoceras sp.

This gorgeous cream and brown big beast of a heteromorph, Diplomoceras (Diplomoceras) sp., (Hyatt, 1900) was found within the 72 million-year-old sediments of the upper Nanaimo Group on the northern Gulf Island of Hornby in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. 

The site is known as Boulder Point to the locals and it has been a popular fossil destination for many years. It is the home of the K'ómoks First Nation, who called the island Ja-dai-aich.

Many of the fossils found at this locality are discovered in concretions rolled smooth by time and tide. The concretions you find on the beach are generally round or oval in shape and are made up of hard, compacted sedimentary rock. 

If you are lucky, when you split these nodules you are rewarded with a fossil hidden within. That is not always the case but the rewards are worth the effort. 

These past few years, many new and wonderful specimens have been unearthed — particularly by members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society. 

And so it was in the first warm days of early summer last year. Three members of the Vancouver Palaeontological Society excavated this 100 cm long fossil specimen over two days in June of 2020. The specimen was not in concretion but rather embedded in the hard sintered shale matrix beneath their feet. It was angled slightly downward towards the shoreline and locked within the rolling shale beds of the island. 

Diplomoceratidae (Spath, 1926) are often referred to as the paperclip ammonites. They are in the family of ammonites included in the order Ammonitida in the Class Cephalopoda and are found within marine offshore to shallow subtidal Cretaceous — 99.7 to 66.043 million-year-old — sediments worldwide. 

I was reading with interest this morning about a new find published by Muramiya and Shigeta in December 2020 of a new heteromorph ammonoid Sormaites teshioensis gen. et sp. nov. (Diplomoceratidae) described from the upper Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) in the Nakagawa area, Hokkaido, northern Japan. This lovely has a shell surface ornamented with simple, straight, sharp-tipped ribs throughout ontogeny, but infrequent flared ribs and constrictions occur on later whorls. Excluding its earliest whorls, its coiling and ornamentation are very similar to Scalarites mihoensis and Sc. densicostatus from the Turonian to Coniacian in Hokkaido and Sakhalin, suggesting that So. teshioensis was probably derived from one of these taxa in the Northwest Pacific during middle to late Turonian.

Much like the long-lived geoducks living in Puget Sound today, studies of Diplomoceras suggest that members of this family could live to be over 200 years old — a good 40-years longer than a geoduck but not nearly as long-lived as the extant bivalve Arctica islandica that reach 405 to 410 years in age. 

Along with this jaw-dropper of a heteromorph, the same group found an Actinosepia, gladius — internal hard body part found in many cephalopods of a Vampyropod. Vampyropods are members of the proposed group Vampyropoda — equivalent to the superorder Octopodiformes — which includes vampire squid and octopus.

The upper Nanaimo Group is a mix of marine sandstone, conglomerate and shale. These are partially exposed in the Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian outcrops at Collishaw Point on the northwest side of Hornby Island.

Along with fossil crabs, shark teeth, bivalves and occasional rare and exquisite saurodontid fish, an ambush predator with very sharp serrated teeth and elongate, torpedo-like body — we also find three heteromorph ammonite families are represented within the massive, dark-grey mudstones interlaminated and interbedded with siltstone and fine-grained sandstone of the upper Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) strata of the Northumberland Formation exposed here: Baculitidae, Diplomoceratidae and Nostoceratidae. 

A variety of species are distinguished within these families, of which only three taxa – Baculites occidentalis (Meek, 1862), Diplomoceras (Diplomoceras) cylindraceum (Defrance, 1816) and Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense (Whiteaves, 1895), have been studied and reported previously. 

Over the last decade, large new collections by many members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society and palaeontologists working at the Geologic Survey of Canada, along with a renewed look at previous collections have provided new taxonomic and morphometric data for the Hornby Island ammonite fauna. This renewed lens has helped shape our understanding and revamp descriptions of heteromorph taxa. Eleven taxa are recognized, including the new species Exiteloceras (Exiteloceras) densicostatum sp. nov., Nostoceras (Didymoceras?) adrotans sp. nov. and Solenoceras exornatus sp. nov. 

A great variety of shape and form exist within each group. Morphometric analyses by Sandy McLachlan and Jim Haggart of over 700 specimens unveiled the considerable phenotypic plasticity of these ammonites. They exhibit an extraordinarily broad spectrum of variability in their ornamentation and shell dimensions. 

The presence of a vibrant amateur palaeontological community on Vancouver Island made the extent of their work possible. Graham Beard, Doug Carrick, Betty Franklin, Raymond Graham, Joe Haegert, Bob Hunt, Stevi Kittleson, Kurt Morrison and Jean Sibbald are thanked for their correspondence and generosity in contributing many of the exquisite specimens featured in that study. 

These generous individuals, along with many other members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS), Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS), and British Columbia Paleontological Alliance (BCPA), have contributed a great deal to our knowledge of the West Coast of Canada and her geologic and palaeontological correlations to the rest of the world; notably, Dan Bowen, Rick Ross, John Fam and Pat and Mike Trask, Naomi & Terry Thomas. Their diligence in the collection, preparation and documentation of macrofossils is a reflection of the passion they have for palaeontology and their will to help shape the narrative of Earth history.

Through their efforts, a large population sample of Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense was made available and provided an excellent case study of a member of the Nostoceratidae. It was through the well-documented collection and examination of a remarkable number of nearly complete, well-preserved specimens that a re-evaluation of diagnostic traits within the genus Nostoceras was made possible. 

The north-east Pacific Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense Zone and the global Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hyatti Assemblage Zone are regarded as correlative, reinforcing a late Campanian age for the Northumberland Formation. This builds on the earlier work of individuals like Alan McGugan and others. McGugan looked at the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian and Maastrichtian) Foraminifera from the Upper Lambert and Northumberland Formations, Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada.

The Maastrichtian Bolivina incrassata fauna (upper part of Upper Lambert Formation) of Hornby Island (northern Comox Basin) is now recognized in the southern Nanaimo Basin on Gabriola and Galiano Islands. The Maastrichtian planktonic index species Globotruncana contusa occurs in the Upper Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island and Globotruncana calcarata (uppermost Campanian) occurs| in the Upper Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island and also in the Upper Lambert Formation at Manning Point on the north shore of Hornby Island (Comox Basin).

Very abundant benthonic and planktonic foraminiferal assemblages from the Upper Campanian Lower Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island enable paleoecological interpretations to be made using the Fisher diversity index, triangular plots of Texturlariina/Rotaliina/Miliolina, calcareous/agglutinated ratios, planktonic/benthonic ratios, generic models, and associated microfossils and megafossils. 

Combined with local geology and stratigraphy a relatively shallow neritic depositional environment is proposed for the Northumberland Formation in agreement with Scott but not Sliter who proposed an Outer shelf/slope environment with depths of 300 m or more.

References & further reading: Sandy M. S. McLachlan & James W. Haggart (2018) Reassessment of the late Campanian (Late Cretaceous) heteromorph ammonite fauna from Hornby Island, British Columbia, with implications for the taxonomy of the Diplomoceratidae and Nostoceratidae, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 16:15, 1247-1299, DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2017.1381651

Crickmay, C. H., and Pocock, S. A. J. 1963. Cretaceous of Vancouver, British Columbia. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 47, pp. 1928-1942.

England, T.D.J. and R. N. Hiscott (1991): Upper Nanaimo Group and younger strata, outer Gulf Islands, southwestern British Columbia: in Current Research, Part E; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 91-1E, p. 117-125.

McGugan, Alan. (2011). Upper Cretaceous (Campanian and Maestrichtian) Foraminifera from the Upper Lambert and Northumberland Formations, Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 16. 2263-2274. 10.1139/e79-211. 

Scott, James. (2021). Upper Cretaceous foraminifera of the Haslam, Qualicum, and Trent River formations, Vancouver Island, British Columbia /. 

Sliter, W. & Baker, RA. (1972). Cretaceous bathymetric distribution of benthic foraminifers. Journal of Foraminiferal Research - J FORAMIN RES. 2. 167-183. 10.2113/gsjfr.2.4.167. 

Spath L. F. 1926. A Monograph of the Ammonoidea of the Gault; Part VI. Palaeontographical Society London

Sullivan, Rory (4 November 2020). "Large squid-like creature that looked like a giant paperclip lived for 200 years — 68 million years ago". The Independent. Archived from the original on 4 November 2020.

Urquhart, N. & Williams, C.. (1966). Patterns in Balance of Nature. Biometrics. 22. 206. 10.2307/2528236. 

Yusuke Muramiya and Yasunari Shigeta "Sormaites, a New Heteromorph Ammonoid Genus from the Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) of Hokkaido, Japan," Paleontological Research 25(1), 11-18, (30 December 2020). https://doi.org/10.2517/2020PR016.

Photos: Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society, Courtenay, British Columbia, Naomi and Terry Thomas.

PTEROSAURS AND SARODONTID FISH OF HORNBY ISLAND

Quetzalcoatlus

If you could travel through time and go back to observe our ancient skies, you would see massive pterosaurs — huge, winged flying reptiles of the extinct order Pterosauria — cruising along with you.

They soared our skies during most of the Mesozoic — from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to 66 million years ago). 

By the end of the Cretaceous, they had grown to giants and one of their brethren, Quetzalcoatlus, a member of the family Azhdarchidae, boasts being the largest known flying animal that ever lived. They were the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.

We divide their lineage into two major types: basal pterosaurs and pterodactyloids. Basal pterosaurs — also called 'non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs' or ‘rhamphorhynchoids’ — were smaller with fully toothed jaws and longish tails. Their wide wing membranes connected to their hind legs giving them some maneuverability on the ground, but with an awkward sprawling posture. Picture a bat trying to walk or crawl along — doable but painful to watch. They were better climbers with flexible joint anatomy and strong claws. Basal pterosaurs preferred to dine on insects and small vertebrates.

Later pterosaurs (pterodactyloids) evolved many sizes, shapes, and lifestyles. Pterodactyloids had narrower wings with free hind limbs, highly reduced tails, and long necks with large heads. On the ground, pterodactyloids walked better than their earlier counterparts, maneuvering all four limbs smoothly with an upright posture. 

They walked standing plantigrade on the hind feet and folding the wing finger upward to walk on the three-fingered "hand." These later pterosaurs were more nimble. They could take off from the ground, run and wade and swim. Their jaws had horny beaks and some of these later groups lacked the teeth of earlier lineages. Some groups developed elaborate head crests that were likely used to attract mates' sexy-pterosaur style.

So can we or have we found pterosaurs on Hornby Island? The short answer is yes.

Collishaw Point, known locally as Boulder Point, Hornby Island

Hornby Island is a lovely lush, island in British Columbia's northern Gulf Islands. It was formed from sediments of the upper Nanaimo Group which are also widely exposed on adjacent Denman Island and the southern Gulf Islands.

Peter Mustard, a geologist from the Geologic Survey of Canada, did considerable work on the geology of the island. It has a total stratigraphic thickness of 1350 m of upper Nanaimo Group marine sandstone, conglomerate and shale. 

These are partially exposed in the Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian outcrops at Collishaw Point on the northwest side of Hornby Island. Four formations underlie the island from oldest to youngest, and from west to east: the Northumberland, Geoffrey, Spray and Gabriola.

During the upper Cretaceous, between ~90 to 65 Ma, sediments derived from the Coast Belt to the east and the Cascades to the southeast poured seaward to the west and northwest into what was the large ancestral Georgia Basin. This major forearc basin was situated between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. The rocks you find here originated far to the south in Baja California and are the right age and type of sediment for a pterosaur find. But are we California dreaming?

Upper Cretaceous Nanaimo Group Fossil Concretion

Well, truth be told, we were with one of the potential pterosaur finds from Hornby. 

It wasn't just hopeful thinking that had the west coast in a paleo uproar many ago when Sharon Hubbard of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society found what looked very much like a pterosaur.

Right time period. Right location. And, we have found them here in the past. Sandy McLachlan found the first definitive pterosaur, an azhdarchid, back in 2008.

But was Sharon's find a pterosaur? Victoria Arbour, a Canadian evolutionary biologist and palaeontologist working as a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and Royal Ontario Museum, certainly thought so. 

While Arbour is an expert on ankylosaurs, our lumbering armoured dinosaurs friends, she has studied pterosaurs and participated in the naming of Gwawinapterus from Hornby Island. But here's the thing — bony material encased in stone and let to cement for millions of years can be tricky.

While this fossil find was initially described as a very late-surviving member of the pterosaur group Istiodactylidae, further examination cast doubt on the identification. Once more detail was revealed the remains were published as being those of a saurodontid fish, an ambush predator with very sharp serrated teeth and elongate, torpedo-like bodies that grew up to two meters. 

Not a pterosaur but still a massively exciting find. Arbour was very gracious at the renaming, taking it in stride. She has since gone on to name a partial ornithischian dinosaur from Sustut Basin, as well as the ankylosaurs Zuul, Zaraapelta, Crichtonpelta, and Ziapelta. But she may have another shot at a pterosaur.

Dan Bowen, Chair, VIPS. Photo: Deanna Steptoe Graham

In 2019, Dan Bowen, Chair of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society and a truly awesome possum, found some very interesting bones in concretion on Hornby. 

The concretion was nestled amongst the 72 million-year-old grey shales of the Northumberland Formation, Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian, part of the Cretaceous Nanaimo Group from Collishaw Point.

The site is known as Boulder Point to the locals and it has been a popular fossil destination for many years. It is the same site where Sharon made her find years earlier.

The concretion contains four articulated vertebrae that looked to be fish at first glance. Jay Hawley, a local fossil enthusiast was asked to prep the block to reveal more details. Once the matrix was largely removed the vertebrae inside were revealed to be bird bones, not fish and not another saurodontid as originally thought. Palaeontologist Victoria Arbour was called back in to put her keen lens on the discovery. 

You will appreciate that she took a good long look at the specimen and confirmed it to be a bird or a pterosaur. We still do not have confirmation on which it is as yet. The delicate bony material is very flattened with a very shallow u-shape on the bottom but will need additional study to confirm if the skies above California were once home to a great pterosaur who died, was fossilized then rode our tectonic plates to now call Hornby home. It is a great story and one that I am keen to follow.

References: To learn more about the azhdarchid remains found by Sandy McLachlan, check out the paper by Martin-Silverston et al. 2016.

HEROES, VILLIANS AND TYRANTS: HORNBY ISLAND HISTORY

Villains, tyrants and heroes alike are immortalized in the scientific literature as researchers don each new species a unique scientific name — and rename geographic sites with a settlers' mindset. 

If you pick through the literature, it is a whose who of monied European explorers literally making a name for themselves, sometimes at great cost to their rivals. 

This truth plays out on British Columbia's West Coast and gulf islands and on Hornby Island, in particular. 

The beautiful island of Hornby is in the traditional territory of the Pentlatch or K’ómoks First Nation, who call it Ja-dai-aich, which means the outer island — a reference to Hornby being on the outside of Denman Island off the east coast of Vancouver Island. 

The island is a mix of beach and meadow, forest and stream. While I often walk the lower beachfront, this island boasts a lovely and very walkable mixed forest that covers its higher ground. 

If you explore here, off the beaten path, you will see a mix of large conifers — Western Hemlock, Grand Fir and Lodgepole Pine on the island. Of these, the Western Red Cedar, Thuja plicata, is the most prized by First Nations. It is the Tree of Life that provides bountiful raw materials for creating everything from art to homes to totems and canoes. 

If you explore these forests further, you will also see wonderful examples of the smaller Pacific yew, Taxus brevifolia, a wee evergreen that holds a special place in the hearts of First Nations whose carvers use this wood for bows and paddles for canoes.

Many spectacular specimens of arbutus, Arbutus menziesii, grow along the water's edge. These lovely evergreens have a rich orange-red bark that peels away in thin sheets, leaving a greenish, silvery smooth appearance and a satiny sheen. Arbutus, the broadleaf evergreen species is the tree I most strongly associate with Hornby. Hornby has its fair share of broadleaf deciduous trees. Bigleaf maple, red alder, black cottonwood, Pacific flowering dogwood, cascara and several species of willow thrive here.

There are populations of Garry oak, Quercus garryana, with their deeply lobed leaves, on the southern end of the island and at Helliwell Provincial Park on a rocky headland at the northeast end of Hornby. 

Local First Nations fire-managed these stands of Garry oak, burning away shrubs and other woody plants so that the thick-barked oaks and nutritious starch-rich plants like great camas, Camassia leichtlinii, could thrive without any nutrient competitors. 

Only about 260 acres (1.1 km2) of undisturbed stands of older forests have been identified on Hornby. They amount to roughly 3.5% of the island's surface area. There are roughly 1,330 acres (540 ha) of older second-growth stands on the island, roughly 19% of the island.

Most of the trees you see on the island are Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii, an evergreen conifer species in the pine family. My Uncle Doug recognized this tree species because of how much the bark looks like bacon — a food he loved. The common name is a nod to the Scottish botanist, David Douglas, who collected and first reported on this large evergreen.

Captain George Vancouver's Commission to Lieutenant

Sadly for Douglas, it is Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician, botanist, naturalist — and David's arch-rival, whose name is commemorated for science. 

He is also credited with the scientific naming of our lovely arbutus trees. 

Menzies was part of the Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy.

Their voyage was built on the work of James Cook. Cook was arguably the first ship's captain to ensure his crew remained scurvy free by implementing a practice of nutritious meals — those containing ascorbic acid also known as Vitamin C — and meticulous standards for onboard hygiene. 

Though he did much to lower the mortality rate amongst his crew, he made some terrible decisions that led to his early demise. Cook was attacked and killed in 1779 during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific while attempting to kidnap the Island of Hawaii's monarch, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. 

During the four and a half year Vancouver Expedition voyage, the crew and officers bickered amongst themselves, circumnavigated the globe, touching down on five continents. Little did they know, for many of them it would be the last voyage they would ever take. 

The expedition returned to a Britain more interested in its ongoing war than in Pacific explorations. Vancouver was attacked by the politically well-connected Menzies for various slights, then challenged to a duel by Thomas Pitt, the 2nd Baron of Camelford. 

The fellow for whom the fair city of Vancouver is named never did complete his massive cartographical work. With health failing and nerves eroded, he lost the dual and his life. It was Peter Puget, whose name adorns Puget Sound, who completed Vancouver's — and arguably Cook's work on the mapping of our world.

And while it is now called Vancouver the city has many names as it falls within the traditional territory of three Coast Salish peoples — the Squamish (Sḵwxwú7mesh), Tsleil-waututh and Xwméthkwyiem ("Musqueam"—from masqui "an edible grass that grows in the sea"), and on the southern shores of Vancouver along the Fraser River, the Xwméthkwyiem.

If you would like to explore more of the history of eponymous naming from Linnaeus to Darwin, to Bowie himself, take a boo at a new book from Stephen B. Heard, "Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider. It is fresh off the press and chock full of historical and pop-culture icons.

References: The City of Vancouver Archives has three George Vancouver documents of note:

• The Commission, dated July 10, 1783, appointing him fourth Lieutenant of the HMS Fame (this is the official document confirming a field commission given to him May 7, 1782)
• A letter to James Sykes (a Navy Agent in London) written from the ship Discovery (not the same Discovery used by Cook) while in Nootka Sound near the end of Vancouver’s exploration of the West Coast, October 2, 1794. Vancouver states that they have determined that the Northwest Passage does not exist, which was one of the main goals of his voyage
• A letter to James Sykes written from Vancouver’s home in Petersham, England, after his voyage, October 26, 1797 

PTEROSAURS AND SARODONTID FISH OF HORNBY ISLAND

Quetzalcoatlus

If you could travel through time and go back to observe our ancient skies, you would see massive pterosaurs — huge, winged flying reptiles of the extinct order Pterosauria — cruising along with you.

They soared our skies during most of the Mesozoic — from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to 66 million years ago). 

By the end of the Cretaceous, they had grown to giants and one of their brethren, Quetzalcoatlus, a member of the family Azhdarchidae, boasts being the largest known flying animal that ever lived. They were the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.

We divide their lineage into two major types: basal pterosaurs and pterodactyloids. Basal pterosaurs — also called 'non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs' or ‘rhamphorhynchoids’ — were smaller with fully toothed jaws and longish tails. Their wide wing membranes connected to their hind legs giving them some maneuverability on the ground, but with an awkward sprawling posture. Picture a bat trying to walk or crawl along — doable but painful to watch. They were better climbers with flexible joint anatomy and strong claws. Basal pterosaurs preferred to dine on insects and small vertebrates.

Later pterosaurs (pterodactyloids) evolved many sizes, shapes, and lifestyles. Pterodactyloids had narrower wings with free hind limbs, highly reduced tails, and long necks with large heads. On the ground, pterodactyloids walked better than their earlier counterparts, maneuvering all four limbs smoothly with an upright posture. 

They walked standing plantigrade on the hind feet and folding the wing finger upward to walk on the three-fingered "hand." These later pterosaurs were more nimble. They could take off from the ground, run and wade and swim. Their jaws had horny beaks and some of these later groups lacked the teeth of earlier lineages. Some groups developed elaborate head crests that were likely used to attract mates' sexy-pterosaur style.

So can we or have we found pterosaurs on Hornby Island? The short answer is yes.

Collishaw Point, known locally as Boulder Point, Hornby Island

Hornby Island is a lovely lush, island in British Columbia's northern Gulf Islands. It was formed from sediments of the upper Nanaimo Group which are also widely exposed on adjacent Denman Island and the southern Gulf Islands.

Peter Mustard, a geologist from the Geologic Survey of Canada, did considerable work on the geology of the island. It has a total stratigraphic thickness of 1350 m of upper Nanaimo Group marine sandstone, conglomerate and shale. 

These are partially exposed in the Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian outcrops at Collishaw Point on the northwest side of Hornby Island. Four formations underlie the island from oldest to youngest, and from west to east: the Northumberland, Geoffrey, Spray and Gabriola.

During the upper Cretaceous, between ~90 to 65 Ma, sediments derived from the Coast Belt to the east and the Cascades to the southeast poured seaward to the west and northwest into what was the large ancestral Georgia Basin. This major forearc basin was situated between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. The rocks you find here originated far to the south in Baja California and are the right age and type of sediment for a pterosaur find. But are we California dreaming?

Upper Cretaceous Nanaimo Group Fossil Concretion

Well, truth be told, we were with one of the potential pterosaur finds from Hornby. 

It wasn't just hopeful thinking that had the west coast in a paleo uproar many ago when Sharon Hubbard of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society found what looked very much like a pterosaur.

Right time period. Right location. And, we have found them here in the past. Sandy McLachlan found the first definitive pterosaur, an azhdarchid, back in 2008.

But was Sharon's find a pterosaur?

Victoria Arbour, a Canadian evolutionary biologist and palaeontologist working as a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and Royal Ontario Museum, certainly thought so. 

While Arbour is an expert on ankylosaurs, our lumbering armoured dinosaurs friends, she has studied pterosaurs and participated in the naming of Gwawinapterus from Hornby Island. But here's the thing — bony material encased in stone and let to cement for millions of years can be tricky.

While this fossil find was initially described as a very late-surviving member of the pterosaur group Istiodactylidae, further examination cast doubt on the identification. Once more detail was revealed the remains were published as being those of a saurodontid fish, an ambush predator with very sharp serrated teeth and elongate, torpedo-like bodies that grew up to two meters. 

Not a pterosaur but still a massively exciting find. Arbour was very gracious at the renaming, taking it in stride. She has since gone on to name a partial ornithischian dinosaur from Sustut Basin, as well as the ankylosaurs Zuul, Zaraapelta, Crichtonpelta, and Ziapelta. But she may have another shot at a pterosaur.

Dan Bowen, Chair, VIPS. Photo: Deanna Steptoe Graham

In 2019, Dan Bowen, Chair of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society and a truly awesome possum, found some very interesting bones in concretion on Hornby. 

The concretion was nestled amongst the 72 million-year-old grey shales of the Northumberland Formation, Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian, part of the Cretaceous Nanaimo Group from Collishaw Point.

The site is known as Boulder Point to the locals and it has been a popular fossil destination for many years. It is the same site where Sharon made her find years earlier.

The concretion contains four articulated vertebrae that looked to be fish at first glance. Jay Hawley, a local fossil enthusiast was asked to prep the block to reveal more details. Once the matrix was largely removed the vertebrae inside were revealed to be bird bones, not fish and not another saurodontid as originally thought. Palaeontologist Victoria Arbour was called back in to put her keen lens on the discovery. 

You will appreciate that she took a good long look at the specimen and confirmed it to be a bird or a pterosaur. We still do not have confirmation on which it is as yet. The delicate bony material is very flattened with a very shallow u-shape on the bottom but will need additional study to confirm if the skies above California were once home to a great pterosaur who died, was fossilized then rode our tectonic plates to now call Hornby home. It is a great story and one that I am keen to follow.

References: To learn more about the azhdarchid remains found by Sandy McLachlan, check out the paper by Martin-Silverston et al. 2016.

AZHDARCHIDS AND AMBUSH PREDATOR FISH OF HORNBY ISLAND

If you could travel through time and go back to observe our ancient skies, you would see massive pterosaurs — huge, winged flying reptiles of the extinct order Pterosauria — cruising along with you. They soared our skies during most of the Mesozoic — from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to 66 million years ago). 

By the end of the Cretaceous, they had grown to giants and one of their brethren, Quetzalcoatlus, a member of the family Azhdarchidae, boasts being the largest known flying animal that ever lived. They were the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.

We divide their lineage into two major types: basal pterosaurs and pterodactyloids. Basal pterosaurs (also called 'non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs' or ‘rhamphorhynchoids’) were smaller animals with fully toothed jaws and long tails. Their wide wing membranes connected to their hind legs. This would have allowed them some manoeuvrability on the ground, but with an awkward sprawling posture. They were better climbers with flexible joint anatomy and strong claws. Basal pterosaurs preferred to dine on insects and small vertebrates.

Later pterosaurs (pterodactyloids) evolved many sizes, shapes, and lifestyles. Pterodactlyoids had narrower wings with free hind limbs, highly reduced tails, and long necks with large heads. On the ground, pterodactyloids walked better than their earlier counterparts, manoeuvring all four limbs smoothly with an upright posture. They walked standing plantigrade on the hind feet and folding the wing finger upward to walk on the three-fingered "hand." These later pterosaurs were more nimble. They could take off from the ground, run and wade and swim. Their jaws had horny beaks and some of these later groups lacked the teeth of earlier lineages. Some groups developed elaborate head crests that were likely used to attract mates' sexy-pterosaur style.

So can we or have we found pterosaurs on Hornby Island? The short answer is yes.

Collishaw Point, known locally as Boulder Point, Hornby Island

Hornby Island is a lovely lush, island in British Columbia's northern Gulf Islands. It was formed from sediments of the upper Nanaimo Group which are also widely exposed on adjacent Denman Island and the southern Gulf Islands.

Peter Mustard, a geologist from the Geologic Survey of Canada, did considerable work on the geology of the island. It has a total stratigraphic thickness of 1350 m of upper Nanaimo Group marine sandstone, conglomerate and shale. 

These are partially exposed in the Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian outcrops at Collishaw Point on the northwest side of Hornby Island. Four formations underlie the island from oldest to youngest, and from west to east: the Northumberland, Geoffrey, Spray and Gabriola.

During the upper Cretaceous, between ~90 to 65 Ma, sediments derived from the Coast Belt to the east and the Cascades to the southeast poured seaward to the west and northwest into what was the large ancestral Georgia Basin. This major forearc basin was situated between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. The rocks you find here originated far to the south in Baja California and are the right age and type of sediment for a pterosaur find. But are we California dreaming?

Upper Cretaceous Nanaimo Group Fossil Concretion

Well, truth be told, we were with one of the potential pterosaur finds from Hornby. It wasn't just hopeful thinking that had the west coast in a paleo uproar many ago when Sharon Hubbard of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society found what looked very much like a pterosaur.

Right time period. Right location. And, we have found them here in the past. Sandy McLachlan found the first definitive pterosaur, an azhdarchid, back in 2008.

But was Sharon's find a pterosaur?

Victoria Arbour, a Canadian evolutionary biologist and palaeontologist working as a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and Royal Ontario Museum, certainly thought so. 

While Arbour is an expert on ankylosaurs, our lumbering armoured dinosaurs friends, she has studied pterosaurs and participated in the naming of Gwawinapterus from Hornby Island. 

But here's the thing — bony material encased in stone and let to cement for millions of years can be tricky.

While this fossil find was initially described as a very late-surviving member of the pterosaur group Istiodactylidae, further examination cast doubt on the identification. Once more detail was revealed the remains were published as being those of a saurodontid fish, an ambush predator with very sharp serrated teeth and elongate, torpedo-like bodies that grew up to two meters. Not a pterosaur but still a massively exciting find. Arbour was very gracious at the renaming, taking it in stride. She has since gone on to name a partial ornithischian dinosaur from Sustut Basin, as well as the ankylosaurs Zuul, Zaraapelta, Crichtonpelta, and Ziapelta. But she may have another shot at a pterosaur.

Dan Bowen, Chair, VIPS. Photo: Deanna Steptoe Graham

In 2019, Dan Bowen, Chair of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society and a truly awesome possum, found some very interesting bones in concretion on Hornby. 

The concretion was nestled amongst the 72 million-year-old grey shales of the Northumberland Formation, Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian, part of the Cretaceous Nanaimo Group from Collishaw Point.

The site is known as Boulder Point to the locals and it has been a popular fossil destination for many years. It is the same site where Sharon made her find years earlier.

The concretion contains four articulated vertebrae that looked to be fish at first glance. Jay Hawley, a local fossil enthusiast was asked to prep the block to reveal more details. Once the matrix was largely removed the vertebrae inside were revealed to be bird bones, not fish and not another saurodontid as originally thought. Palaeontologist Victoria Arbour was called back in to put her keen lens on the discovery. 

You will appreciate that she took a good long look at the specimen and confirmed it to be a bird or a pterosaur. We still do not have confirmation on which it is as yet. The delicate bony material is very flattened with a very shallow u-shape on the bottom but will need additional study to confirm if the skies above California were once home to a great pterosaur who died, was fossilized then rode our tectonic plates to now call Hornby home. It is a great story and one that I am keen to follow.

References: To learn more about the azhdarchid remains found by Sandy McLachlan, check out the paper by Martin-Silverston et al. 2016.

HORNBY ISLAND FOSSIL CEPHALOPODS

Diplomoceras sp.

This gorgeous cream and brown big beast of a heteromorph, Diplomoceras (Diplomoceras) sp., (Hyatt, 1900) was found within the 72 million-year-old sediments of the upper Nanaimo Group on the northern Gulf Island of Hornby in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. 

The site is known as Boulder Point to the locals and it has been a popular fossil destination for many years. It is the home of the K'ómoks First Nation, who called the island Ja-dai-aich.

Many of the fossils found at this locality are discovered in concretions rolled smooth by time and tide. The concretions you find on the beach are generally round or oval in shape and are made up of hard, compacted sedimentary rock. 

If you are lucky, when you split these nodules you are rewarded with a fossil hidden within. That is not always the case but the rewards are worth the effort. 

These past few years, many new and wonderful specimens have been unearthed — particularly by members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society. 

And so it was in the first warm days of early summer last year. Three members of the Vancouver Palaeontological Society excavated this 100 cm long fossil specimen over two days in June of 2020. The specimen was not in concretion but rather embedded in the hard sintered shale matrix beneath their feet. It was angled slightly downward towards the shoreline and locked within the rolling shale beds of the island. 

Diplomoceratidae (Spath, 1926) are often referred to as the paperclip ammonites. They are in the family of ammonites included in the order Ammonitida in the Class Cephalopoda and are found within marine offshore to shallow subtidal Cretaceous — 99.7 to 66.043 million-year-old — sediments worldwide. 

I was reading with interest this morning about a new find published by Muramiya and Shigeta in December 2020 of a new heteromorph ammonoid Sormaites teshioensis gen. et sp. nov. (Diplomoceratidae) described from the upper Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) in the Nakagawa area, Hokkaido, northern Japan. This lovely has a shell surface ornamented with simple, straight, sharp-tipped ribs throughout ontogeny, but infrequent flared ribs and constrictions occur on later whorls. Excluding its earliest whorls, its coiling and ornamentation are very similar to Scalarites mihoensis and Sc. densicostatus from the Turonian to Coniacian in Hokkaido and Sakhalin, suggesting that So. teshioensis was probably derived from one of these taxa in the Northwest Pacific during middle to late Turonian.

Much like the long-lived geoducks living in Puget Sound today, studies of Diplomoceras suggest that members of this family could live to be over 200 years old — a good 40-years longer than a geoduck but not nearly as long-lived as the extant bivalve Arctica islandica that reach 405 to 410 years in age. 

Along with this jaw-dropper of a heteromorph, the same group found an Actinosepia, gladius — internal hard body part found in many cephalopods of a Vampyropod. Vampyropods are members of the proposed group Vampyropoda — equivalent to the superorder Octopodiformes — which includes vampire squid and octopus.

The upper Nanaimo Group is a mix of marine sandstone, conglomerate and shale. These are partially exposed in the Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian outcrops at Collishaw Point on the northwest side of Hornby Island.

Along with fossil crabs, shark teeth, bivalves and occasional rare and exquisite saurodontid fish, an ambush predator with very sharp serrated teeth and elongate, torpedo-like body — we also find three heteromorph ammonite families are represented within the massive, dark-grey mudstones interlaminated and interbedded with siltstone and fine-grained sandstone of the upper Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) strata of the Northumberland Formation exposed here: Baculitidae, Diplomoceratidae and Nostoceratidae. 

A variety of species are distinguished within these families, of which only three taxa – Baculites occidentalis (Meek, 1862), Diplomoceras (Diplomoceras) cylindraceum (Defrance, 1816) and Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense (Whiteaves, 1895), have been studied and reported previously. 

Over the last decade, large new collections by many members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society and palaeontologists working at the Geologic Survey of Canada, along with a renewed look at previous collections have provided new taxonomic and morphometric data for the Hornby Island ammonite fauna. This renewed lens has helped shape our understanding and revamp descriptions of heteromorph taxa. Eleven taxa are recognized, including the new species Exiteloceras (Exiteloceras) densicostatum sp. nov., Nostoceras (Didymoceras?) adrotans sp. nov. and Solenoceras exornatus sp. nov. 

A great variety of shape and form exist within each group. Morphometric analyses by Sandy McLachlan and Jim Haggart of over 700 specimens unveiled the considerable phenotypic plasticity of these ammonites. They exhibit an extraordinarily broad spectrum of variability in their ornamentation and shell dimensions. 

The presence of a vibrant amateur palaeontological community on Vancouver Island made the extent of their work possible. Graham Beard, Doug Carrick, Betty Franklin, Raymond Graham, Joe Haegert, Bob Hunt, Stevi Kittleson, Kurt Morrison and Jean Sibbald are thanked for their correspondence and generosity in contributing many of the exquisite specimens featured in that study. 

These generous individuals, along with many other members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS), Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS), and British Columbia Paleontological Alliance (BCPA), have contributed a great deal to our knowledge of the West Coast of Canada and her geologic and palaeontological correlations to the rest of the world; notably, Dan Bowen, Rick Ross, John Fam and Pat and Mike Trask, Naomi & Terry Thomas. Their diligence in the collection, preparation and documentation of macrofossils is a reflection of the passion they have for palaeontology and their will to help shape the narrative of Earth history.

Through their efforts, a large population sample of Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense was made available and provided an excellent case study of a member of the Nostoceratidae. It was through the well-documented collection and examination of a remarkable number of nearly complete, well-preserved specimens that a re-evaluation of diagnostic traits within the genus Nostoceras was made possible. 

The north-east Pacific Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense Zone and the global Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hyatti Assemblage Zone are regarded as correlative, reinforcing a late Campanian age for the Northumberland Formation. This builds on the earlier work of individuals like Alan McGugan and others. McGugan looked at the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian and Maastrichtian) Foraminifera from the Upper Lambert and Northumberland Formations, Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada.

The Maastrichtian Bolivina incrassata fauna (upper part of Upper Lambert Formation) of Hornby Island (northern Comox Basin) is now recognized in the southern Nanaimo Basin on Gabriola and Galiano Islands. The Maastrichtian planktonic index species Globotruncana contusa occurs in the Upper Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island and Globotruncana calcarata (uppermost Campanian) occurs| in the Upper Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island and also in the Upper Lambert Formation at Manning Point on the north shore of Hornby Island (Comox Basin).

Very abundant benthonic and planktonic foraminiferal assemblages from the Upper Campanian Lower Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island enable paleoecological interpretations to be made using the Fisher diversity index, triangular plots of Texturlariina/Rotaliina/Miliolina, calcareous/agglutinated ratios, planktonic/benthonic ratios, generic models, and associated microfossils and megafossils. 

Combined with local geology and stratigraphy a relatively shallow neritic depositional environment is proposed for the Northumberland Formation in agreement with Scott but not Sliter who proposed an Outer shelf/slope environment with depths of 300 m or more.

References & further reading: Sandy M. S. McLachlan & James W. Haggart (2018) Reassessment of the late Campanian (Late Cretaceous) heteromorph ammonite fauna from Hornby Island, British Columbia, with implications for the taxonomy of the Diplomoceratidae and Nostoceratidae, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 16:15, 1247-1299, DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2017.1381651

Crickmay, C. H., and Pocock, S. A. J. 1963. Cretaceous of Vancouver, British Columbia. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 47, pp. 1928-1942.

England, T.D.J. and R. N. Hiscott (1991): Upper Nanaimo Group and younger strata, outer Gulf Islands, southwestern British Columbia: in Current Research, Part E; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 91-1E, p. 117-125.

McGugan, Alan. (2011). Upper Cretaceous (Campanian and Maestrichtian) Foraminifera from the Upper Lambert and Northumberland Formations, Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 16. 2263-2274. 10.1139/e79-211. 

Scott, James. (2021). Upper Cretaceous foraminifera of the Haslam, Qualicum, and Trent River formations, Vancouver Island, British Columbia /. 

Sliter, W. & Baker, RA. (1972). Cretaceous bathymetric distribution of benthic foraminifers. Journal of Foraminiferal Research - J FORAMIN RES. 2. 167-183. 10.2113/gsjfr.2.4.167. 

Spath L. F. 1926. A Monograph of the Ammonoidea of the Gault; Part VI. Palaeontographical Society London

Sullivan, Rory (4 November 2020). "Large squid-like creature that looked like a giant paperclip lived for 200 years — 68 million years ago". The Independent. Archived from the original on 4 November 2020.

Urquhart, N. & Williams, C.. (1966). Patterns in Balance of Nature. Biometrics. 22. 206. 10.2307/2528236. 

Yusuke Muramiya and Yasunari Shigeta "Sormaites, a New Heteromorph Ammonoid Genus from the Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) of Hokkaido, Japan," Paleontological Research 25(1), 11-18, (30 December 2020). https://doi.org/10.2517/2020PR016.

Photos: Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society, Courtenay, British Columbia, Naomi and Terry Thomas.

HORNBY ISLAND: A WEALTH OF NEW FOSSIL FINDS

Pachydiscus suchiaensis ID: 18-08-CP-002

Hornby is a glorious place to collect. It is family and dog friendly. You need to dress for beach collecting preferably with rubber boots, eye protection and clothing for both sun and rain. 

I like to bring a 5-gallon bucket or hard plastic bottomed backpack for my finds. Whatever you bring is going to get wet, muddy and laced with sand. 

As well as a rock hammer, I bring a 2-4 pound sledgehammer and rock pick for collecting and cracking open the concretions here. If you are lucky, when you split them you see a fossil hidden within. 

While that is not always the case, the rewards are well-worth. One such beauty from a glorious day of collecting on Hornby is the beautiful ammonite you see here.

It is nestled amongst the seaweed and modern oysters clinging to the grey shales of the Northumberland Formation is the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) ammonite Pachydiscus suchiaensis. This is one of my favourite species and is treasured both for its beauty and the fossil site it hails from. 

This darling was found in situ in the 72 million-year-old sediments at Collishaw Point on the northwest side of Hornby Island, southwestern British Columbia.

The island is beautiful in its own right and the fossils from here often keep some of their original shell or nacre which makes them quite fetching. This fellow is found amongst gastropods, shark teeth, fossil crabs, baculites and other bivalve fossils. 

Many of the fossils found at this locality are found in concretions rolled smooth by time and tide. The concretions you find on the beach are generally round or oval in shape and are made up of hard, compacted sedimentary rock. 

These past few years, many new and wonderful specimens have been unearthed — particularly by members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS). 

Two particular finds are jaw-droppers — a Diploceras (think one-metre long paperclip, except it is a heteromorph ammonite) longer than your arm and Actinosepia gladius — internal hard body part found in many cephalopods — of a Vampyropod, a member of the proposed group Vampyropoda — equivalent to the superorder Octopodiformes — which includes vampire squid and octopus. 

Not all of these beauties come out in one piece and as well as amazing collecting skill, the VIPS boasts some of the best Fossil Preparators in British Columbia. A nod of respect to both Jason Hawley and Rick Ross in this regard. Rick is a skilled collector and found a rather nice and rare pachydiscid ammonite at Hornby this past year that I had never seen before. It has been a good year for collecting at Collishaw Point. Another notable find was the decapod, Archaeopus vancouverensis (Woodward 1896), found by Adam Melzak this past summer. If you are looking to get out and about, fossil collecting on Hornby Island is the perfect day trip or weekend getaway.

Where to View the Fossils:

The Courtenay Museum, Qualicum Museum and Pacific Museum of the Earth have delightful collections of specimens from the Upper Cretaceous of Hornby Island. This lovely heteromorph ammonite, Nostoceras hornbyense (Whiteaves, 1895) is a classic. The photo below is courtesy of John Fam, Vice-Chair of the Vancouver Paleontological Society (VIPS) on a recent visit to poke through the collections at the Pacific Museum of the Earth. 

It is a classic example of the heteromorph specimens found at Hornby. Bob Copeman found the best Nostoceras hornbyense I have ever seen from these outcrops. Lucky for you, a replica of that specimen has been made is available to be purchased from the VIPS. Always a nice addition to the collection — especially if you keep a teaching collection where specimens need to be handled by younger, rougher hands.

Nostoceras hornbyense (Whiteaves, 1895)

The main topographic feature on Hornby Island is an arcuate mountain of the resistant cliff-forming Geoffrey formation. Near Shingle Spit about half a mile from the coast is Mt. Geoffrey 920-foot peak; from there the mountain gradually drops in elevation to the southeast and to the north.  

It is 700-feet of conglomerate in a homocline striking N 20° W and dipping to the northeast at a shallow angle of about 6°. 

The apex of the arcuate mountain belt points to the southwest. The coast of Hornby is probably a rising shoreline, as indicated by the almost perpendicular cliffs along its periphery. A hundred (100) foot cliffs of Lambert shale extends from Shingle Spit to Phipps Point, while from the latter to Boulder Point, the cliffs are not as steep and are covered in many places by vegetation.

Behind the mountain and almost enclosed by it is the fertile, green Strachan Valley. On the large peninsula which extends in a southeast direction from the north of the island towards St. John’s Point, the Hornby Formation outcrops form the cliffs on the east side of Tribune Bay. The highest of these is about 200 feet. The argillaceous Lambert and Spray formations form the subdued lowlands of the island.

HEROES, VILLIANS AND TYRANTS: HORNBY ISLAND

Villains, tyrants and heroes alike are immortalized in the scientific literature as researchers don each new species a unique scientific name — and rename geographic sites with a settlers' mindset. 

If you pick through the literature, it is a whose who of monied European explorers literally making a name for themselves, sometimes at great cost to their rivals. 

This truth plays out on British Columbia's West Coast and gulf islands and on Hornby Island, in particular. 

The beautiful island of Hornby is in the traditional territory of the Pentlatch or K’ómoks First Nation, who call it Ja-dai-aich, which means the outer island — a reference to Hornby being on the outside of Denman Island off the east coast of Vancouver Island. 

The island is a mix of beach and meadow, forest and stream. While I often walk the lower beachfront, this island boasts a lovely and very walkable mixed forest that covers its higher ground. 

If you explore here, off the beaten path, you will see a mix of large conifers — Western Hemlock, Grand Fir and Lodgepole Pine on the island. Of these, the Western Red Cedar, Thuja plicata, is the most prized by First Nations. It is the Tree of Life that provides bountiful raw materials for creating everything from art to homes to totems and canoes. 

If you explore these forests further, you will also see wonderful examples of the smaller Pacific yew, Taxus brevifolia, a wee evergreen that holds a special place in the hearts of First Nations whose carvers use this wood for bows and paddles for canoes.

Many spectacular specimens of arbutus, Arbutus menziesii, grow along the water's edge. These lovely evergreens have a rich orange-red bark that peels away in thin sheets, leaving a greenish, silvery smooth appearance and a satiny sheen. Arbutus, the broadleaf evergreen species is the tree I most strongly associate with Hornby. Hornby has its fair share of broadleaf deciduous trees. Bigleaf maple, red alder, black cottonwood, Pacific flowering dogwood, cascara and several species of willow thrive here.

There are populations of Garry oak, Quercus garryana, with their deeply lobed leaves, on the southern end of the island and at Helliwell Provincial Park on a rocky headland at the northeast end of Hornby. 

Local First Nations fire-managed these stands of Garry oak, burning away shrubs and other woody plants so that the thick-barked oaks and nutritious starch-rich plants like great camas, Camassia leichtlinii, could thrive without any nutrient competitors. 

Only about 260 acres (1.1 km2) of undisturbed stands of older forests have been identified on Hornby. They amount to roughly 3.5% of the island's surface area. There are roughly 1,330 acres (540 ha) of older second-growth stands on the island, roughly 19% of the island.

Most of the trees you see on the island are Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii, an evergreen conifer species in the pine family. My Uncle Doug recognized this tree species because of how much the bark looks like bacon — a food he loved. The common name is a nod to the Scottish botanist, David Douglas, who collected and first reported on this large evergreen.

Captain George Vancouver's Commission to Lieutenant

Sadly for Douglas, it is Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician, botanist, naturalist — and David's arch-rival, whose name is commemorated for science. 

He is also credited with the scientific naming of our lovely arbutus trees. 

Menzies was part of the Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy.

Their voyage was built on the work of James Cook. Cook was arguably the first ship's captain to ensure his crew remained scurvy free by implementing a practice of nutritious meals — those containing ascorbic acid also known as Vitamin C — and meticulous standards for onboard hygiene. 

Though he did much to lower the mortality rate amongst his crew, he made some terrible decisions that led to his early demise. Cook was attacked and killed in 1779 during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific while attempting to kidnap the Island of Hawaii's monarch, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. 

During the four and a half year Vancouver Expedition voyage, the crew and officers bickered amongst themselves, circumnavigated the globe, touching down on five continents. Little did they know, for many of them it would be the last voyage they would ever take. 

The expedition returned to a Britain more interested in its ongoing war than in Pacific explorations. Vancouver was attacked by the politically well-connected Menzies for various slights, then challenged to a duel by Thomas Pitt, the 2nd Baron of Camelford. 

The fellow for whom the fair city of Vancouver is named never did complete his massive cartographical work. With health failing and nerves eroded, he lost the dual and his life. It was Peter Puget, whose name adorns Puget Sound, who completed Vancouver's — and arguably Cook's work on the mapping of our world.

And while it is now called Vancouver the city has many names as it falls within the traditional territory of three Coast Salish peoples — the Squamish (Sḵwxwú7mesh), Tsleil-waututh and Xwméthkwyiem ("Musqueam"—from masqui "an edible grass that grows in the sea"), and on the southern shores of Vancouver along the Fraser River, the Xwméthkwyiem.

If you would like to explore more of the history of eponymous naming from Linnaeus to Darwin, to Bowie himself, take a boo at a new book from Stephen B. Heard, "Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider. It is fresh off the press and chock full of historical and pop-culture icons.

References: The City of Vancouver Archives has three George Vancouver documents of note:

• The Commission, dated July 10, 1783, appointing him fourth Lieutenant of the HMS Fame (this is the official document confirming a field commission given to him May 7, 1782)
• A letter to James Sykes (a Navy Agent in London) written from the ship Discovery (not the same Discovery used by Cook) while in Nootka Sound near the end of Vancouver’s exploration of the West Coast, October 2, 1794. Vancouver states that they have determined that the Northwest Passage does not exist, which was one of the main goals of his voyage
• A letter to James Sykes written from Vancouver’s home in Petersham, England, after his voyage, October 26, 1797 

HEROES, VILLAINS AND TYRANTS: HORNBY ISLAND HISTORY

Villains, tyrants and heroes alike are immortalized in the scientific literature as researchers don each new species a unique scientific name — and rename geographic sites with a settlers' mindset. 

If you pick through the literature, it is a whose who of monied European explorers literally making a name for themselves, sometimes at great cost to their rivals. 

This truth plays out on British Columbia's West Coast and gulf islands and on Hornby Island, in particular. 

The beautiful island of Hornby is in the traditional territory of the Pentlatch or K’ómoks First Nation, who call it Ja-dai-aich, which means the outer island — a reference to Hornby being on the outside of Denman Island off the east coast of Vancouver Island. 

The island is a mix of beach and meadow, forest and stream. While I often walk the lower beachfront, this island boasts a lovely and very walkable mixed forest that covers its higher ground. 

If you explore here, off the beaten path, you will see a mix of large conifers — Western Hemlock, Grand Fir and Lodgepole Pine on the island. Of these, the Western Red Cedar, Thuja plicata, is the most prized by First Nations. It is the Tree of Life that provides bountiful raw materials for creating everything from art to homes to totems and canoes. 

If you explore these forests further, you will also see wonderful examples of the smaller Pacific yew, Taxus brevifolia, a wee evergreen that holds a special place in the hearts of First Nations whose carvers use this wood for bows and paddles for canoes.

Many spectacular specimens of arbutus, Arbutus menziesii, grow along the water's edge. These lovely evergreens have a rich orange-red bark that peels away in thin sheets, leaving a greenish, silvery smooth appearance and a satiny sheen. Arbutus, the broadleaf evergreen species is the tree I most strongly associate with Hornby. Hornby has its fair share of broadleaf deciduous trees. Bigleaf maple, red alder, black cottonwood, Pacific flowering dogwood, cascara and several species of willow thrive here.

There are populations of Garry oak, Quercus garryana, with their deeply lobed leaves, on the southern end of the island and at Helliwell Provincial Park on a rocky headland at the northeast end of Hornby. 

Local First Nations fire-managed these stands of Garry oak, burning away shrubs and other woody plants so that the thick-barked oaks and nutritious starch-rich plants like great camas, Camassia leichtlinii, could thrive without any nutrient competitors. 

Only about 260 acres (1.1 km2) of undisturbed stands of older forests have been identified on Hornby. They amount to roughly 3.5% of the island's surface area. There are roughly 1,330 acres (540 ha) of older second-growth stands on the island, roughly 19% of the island.

Most of the trees you see on the island are Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii, an evergreen conifer species in the pine family. My Uncle Doug recognized this tree species because of how much the bark looks like bacon — a food he loved. The common name is a nod to the Scottish botanist, David Douglas, who collected and first reported on this large evergreen.

Captain George Vancouver's Commission to Lieutenant

Sadly for Douglas, it is Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician, botanist, naturalist — and David's arch-rival, whose name is commemorated for science. 

He is also credited with the scientific naming of our lovely arbutus trees. 

Menzies was part of the Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy.

Their voyage was built on the work of James Cook. Cook was arguably the first ship's captain to ensure his crew remained scurvy free by implementing a practice of nutritious meals — those containing ascorbic acid also known as Vitamin C — and meticulous standards for onboard hygiene. 

Though he did much to lower the mortality rate amongst his crew, he made some terrible decisions that led to his early demise. Cook was attacked and killed in 1779 during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific while attempting to kidnap the Island of Hawaii's monarch, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. 

During the four and a half year Vancouver Expedition voyage, the crew and officers bickered amongst themselves, circumnavigated the globe, touching down on five continents. Little did they know, for many of them it would be the last voyage they would ever take. 

The expedition returned to a Britain more interested in its ongoing war than in Pacific explorations. Vancouver was attacked by the politically well-connected Menzies for various slights, then challenged to a duel by Thomas Pitt, the 2nd Baron of Camelford. 

The fellow for whom the fair city of Vancouver is named never did complete his massive cartographical work. With health failing and nerves eroded, he lost the dual and his life. It was Peter Puget, whose name adorns Puget Sound, who completed Vancouver's — and arguably Cook's work on the mapping of our world.

And while it is now called Vancouver the city has many names as it falls within the traditional territory of three Coast Salish peoples — the Squamish (Sḵwxwú7mesh), Tsleil-waututh and Xwméthkwyiem ("Musqueam"—from masqui "an edible grass that grows in the sea"), and on the southern shores of Vancouver along the Fraser River, the Xwméthkwyiem.

If you would like to explore more of the history of eponymous naming from Linnaeus to Darwin, to Bowie himself, take a boo at a new book from Stephen B. Heard, "Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider. It is fresh off the press and chock full of historical and pop-culture icons.

References: The City of Vancouver Archives has three George Vancouver documents of note:

• The Commission, dated July 10, 1783, appointing him fourth Lieutenant of the HMS Fame (this is the official document confirming a field commission given to him May 7, 1782)
• A letter to James Sykes (a Navy Agent in London) written from the ship Discovery (not the same Discovery used by Cook) while in Nootka Sound near the end of Vancouver’s exploration of the West Coast, October 2, 1794. Vancouver states that they have determined that the Northwest Passage does not exist, which was one of the main goals of his voyage
• A letter to James Sykes written from Vancouver’s home in Petersham, England, after his voyage, October 26, 1797 

HORNBY ISLAND FOSSIL COLLECTING

Pachydiscus suchiaensis ID: 18-08-CP-002

Hornby is a glorious place to collect. It is family and dog friendly. You need to dress for beach collecting preferably with rubber boots, eye protection and clothing for both sun and rain. 

I like to bring a 5-gallon bucket or hard plastic bottomed backpack for my finds. Whatever you bring is going to get wet, muddy and laced with sand. 

As well as a rock hammer, I bring a 2-4 pound sledgehammer and rock pick for collecting and cracking open the concretions here. If you are lucky, when you split them you see a fossil hidden within. 

While that is not always the case, the rewards are well-worth. One such beauty from a glorious day of collecting on Hornby is the beautiful ammonite you see here.

It is nestled amongst the seaweed and modern oysters clinging to the grey shales of the Northumberland Formation is the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) ammonite Pachydiscus suchiaensis. This is one of my favourite species and is treasured both for its beauty and the fossil site it hails from. 

This darling was found in situ in the 72 million-year-old sediments at Collishaw Point on the northwest side of Hornby Island, southwestern British Columbia.

The island is beautiful in its own right and the fossils from here often keep some of their original shell or nacre which makes them quite fetching. This fellow is found amongst gastropods, shark teeth, fossil crabs, baculites and other bivalve fossils. 

Many of the fossils found at this locality are found in concretions rolled smooth by time and tide. The concretions you find on the beach are generally round or oval in shape and are made up of hard, compacted sedimentary rock. 

These past few years, many new and wonderful specimens have been unearthed — particularly by members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS). 

Two particular finds are jaw-droppers — a Diploceras (think one-metre long paperclip, except it is a heteromorph ammonite) longer than your arm and Actinosepia gladius — internal hard body part found in many cephalopods — of a Vampyropod, a member of the proposed group Vampyropoda — equivalent to the superorder Octopodiformes — which includes vampire squid and octopus. 

Not all of these beauties come out in one piece and as well as amazing collecting skill, the VIPS boasts some of the best Fossil Preparators in British Columbia. A nod of respect to both Jason Hawley and Rick Ross in this regard. Rick is a skilled collector and found a rather nice and rare pachydiscid ammonite at Hornby this past year that I had never seen before. It has been a good year for collecting at Collishaw Point. Another notable find was the decapod, Archaeopus vancouverensis (Woodward 1896), found by Adam Melzak this past summer. If you are looking to get out and about, fossil collecting on Hornby Island is the perfect day trip or weekend getaway.

Where to View the Fossils:

The Courtenay Museum, Qualicum Museum and Pacific Museum of the Earth have delightful collections of specimens from the Upper Cretaceous of Hornby Island. This lovely heteromorph ammonite, Nostoceras hornbyense (Whiteaves, 1895) is a classic. The photo below is courtesy of John Fam, Vice-Chair of the Vancouver Paleontological Society (VIPS) on a recent visit to poke through the collections at the Pacific Museum of the Earth. 

It is a classic example of the heteromorph specimens found at Hornby. Bob Copeman found the best Nostoceras hornbyense I have ever seen from these outcrops. Lucky for you, a replica of that specimen has been made is available to be purchased from the VIPS. Always a nice addition to the collection — especially if you keep a teaching collection where specimens need to be handled by younger, rougher hands.

Nostoceras hornbyense (Whiteaves, 1895)

The main topographic feature on Hornby Island is an arcuate mountain of the resistant cliff-forming Geoffrey formation. Near Shingle Spit about half a mile from the coast is Mt. Geoffrey 920-foot peak; from there the mountain gradually drops in elevation to the southeast and to the north.  

It is 700-feet of conglomerate in a homocline striking N 20° W and dipping to the northeast at a shallow angle of about 6°. 

The apex of the arcuate mountain belt points to the southwest. The coast of Hornby is probably a rising shoreline, as indicated by the almost perpendicular cliffs along its periphery. A hundred (100) foot cliffs of Lambert shale extends from Shingle Spit to Phipps Point, while from the latter to Boulder Point, the cliffs are not as steep and are covered in many places by vegetation.

Behind the mountain and almost enclosed by it is the fertile, green Strachan Valley. On the large peninsula which extends in a southeast direction from the north of the island towards St. John’s Point, the Hornby Formation outcrops form the cliffs on the east side of Tribune Bay. The highest of these is about 200 feet. The argillaceous Lambert and Spray formations form the subdued lowlands of the island.