I quote a report written by Brad Pisony - Senior Quality Technologist - Elk Valley Coal Corporation.
Giant Ammonite Un-Earthed
On the night shift of November 15th, 2004, at Elk Valley Coal Corporation’s Coal Mountain Operations, south east of Sparwood, BC, “G” crew’s Richard Budd (operator of an O&K RH200 Shovel excavator) noticed something very unusual and very rare in the digging face of the 1896 bench: a fossilized giant ammonite rolled out from the edge of the 23 cubic meter bucket and came to rest near the toe of the face! Fortunately, thanks to Richard’s keen eye and awareness of such fossil potential, the specimen was salvaged from the face, with the help of Luigi Sagrafena operating a Caterpillar 994 production loader.
The find was set aside in a safe place where it was blanketed by a thin layer of snow later that night. It was eventually moved into the warehouse away from the detrimental effects of the weather.
This is the second of these giant ammonite fossils recovered in the past 30 years at Coal Mountain. The first was about one third the size and was identified as Lytoceras. The fossil specimen found in November 2004 is much larger and very rare in North America. It has tentatively been identified as a “Titanites occidentalis,” (Western Giant), the second only known specimen of this extinct fossil species next to the one discovered in 1947 in nearby Coal Creek by a BCGS mapping team.
Ammonites are ancient relatives of the modern day Nautilus, which can be found in the shallow waters of the tropical South Pacific.
In July 1947 a field crew mapping coal outcrops for the BC Geological Survey were working in a drainage east of Fernie. A student had reported finding a “fossil truck tire”. A few years later GSC Paleontologist Hans Frebold described and named the fossil as “Titanites occidentalis” after the large Jurassic aged ammonites found in Dorset, England.
The fossil’s size and nature of preservation prevented it from being moved to a museum, and therefore disallowed one of the requirements when naming a new species. Only latex molds were made of the Coal Creek specimen.
The recent Coal Mountain ammonite find may now provide paleontologists with a good diagnostic specimen to properly identify and possibly rename it as a new species.
The fossil unearthed by Richard Budd is over a metre in diameter and contains both positive and negative impressions. It is massive in size, weighing over 2300 kg including the matrix. The large -scale ribs and the smooth inner whorls are tell-tale signs of the genus “Titanites?”, very similar to the Coal Creek find.
These animals lived in the shallow seas that covered parts of British Columbia during the late Jurassic Period, some 150 million years ago. They were fast moving, predatory cephalopods, with large eyes and numerous long tentacles protruding from the opening in the large end of their shell (imagine a giant coiled squid). When they died in the sea, gasses from their rotting flesh would accumulate in their shell, causing them to float and drift with the currents, where they would eventually come to rest on a sandy beach. The soft parts of their body would have disappeared, leaving only the hard calcified shell, which would have filled with sand due to tidal action. Over time, it would have been buried and eventually fossilized. The sandy beach that entombed the Coal Mountain Ammonite, 150 million years later is mined as the Moose Mountain Sandstone, which forms the footwall of the Kootenay Formation coal deposit at Coal Mountain.
The Giant Ammonite find at Coal Mountain is obviously very significant. Elk Valley Coal Corporation (head office in Calgary, Alberta) has subsequently donated the specimen to the Courtenay and District Museum and Paleontology Centre in Courtenay, British Columbia where it can be studied by paleontologists. The original fossil will remain on display at the museum. A cast of the specimen is planned to be financed by EVCC and eventually displayed in the Canadian Coal Discovery Centre in Sparwood, BC, where the public can view and enjoy this unique local find.
The Canadian Coal Discovery Centre has been a work in progress for several years, with construction to be completed next year. The Elk Valley Coal Discovery Centre will showcase, interpret and preserve the story of coal and create a legacy for the area. The Centre will present an interpretive heritage experience which does not currently exist in the Elk Valley.
For the purposes of the fundraising campaign, the CCDC Society adopted the ‘ammonite’ symbol as the branding for the Centre, which represents the beginning of coal 150 million years ago. The Coal Mountain “Titanites” ammonite cast, as a result, will have a very prominent location in the new Canadian Coal Discovery Centre that all Elk Valley Coal employees and their families can be proud of.
Brad D. Pisony
Senior Quality Technologist
Elk Valley Coal Corporation
Coal Mountain Operations
This is where Palcoprep became involved. It soon became obvious that the original fossil was too heavy to be put on display in the museum in Courtenay. Palcoprep was contracted to prepare two casts of the original fossil. We travelled to Courtenay and fabricated a mold of the original fossil. The mold was brought back to our shop in Drumheller. From that mold we manufactured two accurate casts of the fossil. These casts were reinforced and mounted onto an armature for public display. One of the casts was delivered to Courtenay for display in the the Courtenay and District Museum and Palaeontology Center. The other was delivered to the Canadian Coal Discovery Center in Sparwood, British Columbia.
Once the casts had been completed, I photographed them both in Black and White, and in color...
At the end of the project I prepared a number of Fine Art Prints from one of the black and white negatives that I had taken of the completed casts. These were archivally processed silver gelatin prints originally captured on film with a medium format camera. The prints were mounted, matted and framed. One hangs in the Canadian Coal Discovery Center in Sparwood with the one of the casts. Another was presented to the shovel operator that found the original fossil, and yet another to one of the individuals that lobbied to have this fossil recognized. A print was also presented to Teck Coal, who supported this project every step of the way. We also have one at the Palcoprep office in Drumheller.
