A nondescript gravel pit in rural Alberta has been a boon for paleontologists.
At the site in Big Stone, some 380 kilometres southeast of Edmonton, paleontologists have been finding rare fossils of prehistoric camels and horses from 1.5 to 4.5 million years ago.
By studying these fossils, researchers get a glimpse into Alberta’s prehistory.
Kelsey Martin, the aggregates manager at the Special Areas Board of Alberta, noticed that in 2019 rocks they were extracting from a particular gravel bed looked different from other sites.
Martin wanted to know how old the rocks were, and contacted the Royal Alberta Museum for help.
Tempered expectations
Christina Barron-Ortiz, a paleontologist at RAM, hoped they’d be able to find some fossils, which could help date the site.
But she didn’t have high expectations.
“Usually, it’s really hard to find fossils in gravels,” she said.
“We have visited many gravel pits across the province, and often we find nothing.”
The gravel beds are what’s left of ancient rivers, she said, and rivers tend to break down animal bones into tiny fragments.
A gravel pit at Big Stone, where the fossils were found. (Submitted by Christina Barron-Ortiz)
The Big Stone site significantly exceeded Barron-Ortiz’s expectations.
When they visited it in 2019, her colleague Katherine Bramble found a complete and well-preserved premolar tooth from an upper jaw of a prehistoric horse, to Barron-Ortiz’s great excitement.
Christina Barron-Ortiz holds up the fossil upper right premolar tooth of a prehistoric horse next to a skull of a modern horse (David Bajer/CBC)
Martin said that day happened to be one where a lot of elected officials and administrative staff visited the site.
“So — lo and behold — as they got off the bus, both Christina and Katherine said, ‘Hey, this looks unique.’ And they pulled up a fossil of a horse tooth, just as everyone was coming off the bus,” Martin recalls.
“Kudos to them for going and looking, because it’s kind of a hundred- or a thousand-to-one odds that you’re going to find material,” said Duane Froese, a professor in the department of Earth and atmospheric sciences at the University of Alberta, who specializes in the ice age and past environments over the last 2.5 million years.
A horse molar, found in 2023. (Submitted by Christina Barron-Ortiz)
Froese said the Big Stone site is likely to prove a rich source of fossils.
“The fact that people found them just walking around tells you that there’s probably a lot there,” he said.
Bones give clues about prehistoric environment
Barron-Ortiz said the tooth they found is anywhere between about 1.5 and 4.5 million years old and fossils from that period are “exceedingly rare.”
Paleontologists have been returning to the Big Stone site since 2019, and visited it twice this year. Besides finding horse bones and teeth, they also found camel bones in the Big Stone pit.
Both horses and camels evolved and diversified in North America about four million years ago, and disappeared about 10,000 years ago.
Prehistoric camels, like horses, migrated to Asia, where they evolved into modern bactrian and dromedary camels. They also moved to South America, where they evolved into modern llamas and alpacas.
Christina Barron-Ortiz demonstrating a fossil of a metacarpal of a camel found at Big Stone next to the bone of a modern llama. (David Bajer/ CBC)
So far, paleontologists have been finding mostly camel and horse bones because of how abundant they were during that period. They were grazers, well-adapted to the dry, grassy steppe in Alberta between 1.5 and 4.5 million years ago, Froese said.
“We’re thinking about things that are living off of probably grasslands. That’s consistent with what we think about the environment at that time.”
But RAM scientists have been finding other fossils, too, that they have not been able to identify yet.
This September, for example, they a fragment of the lower jaw of an unknown animal. Its teeth are broken, but the roots are still there.
A fossil of unidentified animal found at Big Stone this September. (David Bajer/ CBC)
“That may give us a clue to help us identify what it is,” Barron-Ortiz said.
It wasn’t a horse that the jaw belonged to, she said, and RAM scientists don’t believe it was a camel, either. Potential candidates include peccaries, which are related to pigs, but it could also be a carnivore, she said.
“We haven’t had the time to really sit down and take measurements, and start to compare it to other fossils to really get a sense of what it could be,” she said.
Dating the fossils
Scientists are also working on dating the fossils more precisely.
At this time, they only have a range that covers millions of years. The fossils are too old for carbon dating, so paleontologists and geologists working on them have to use different methods.
“We’ve collected samples to see if we could find any pollen grains, which would give us an understanding of the vegetation that lived in the area,” said Dale Leckie, a geologist with a specialization in reconstructing ancient environments.
They are looking for remnants of volcanic ashes in the site, which would allow them to date the site more precisely.
Many volcanic eruptions have been studied, and linking ash to a particular eruption would allow scientists to determine the age of the site.
They are also considering dating the deposits using paleomagnetism. At irregular intervals, the north and south poles reverse, and this change in Earth’s polarity is imprinted in the rocks.
Paleontologists intend to keep coming back to Big Stone, Barron-Ortiz said, and Martin is optimistic about the possibility of finding more fossils there.
“We definitely are planning on coming back next year,” Barron-Ortiz said.
“Hopefully over the winter, there’ll be more erosion, and some of the bones that are just about to be exposed get exposed.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
