Friends recover ancient fossil in Edmonton’s river valley: ‘Like finding a needle in a haystack’

Two men who made a shocking discovery on a canoe trip in October were overjoyed Tuesday, after recovering a unique fossilized tree stump from the banks of the North Saskatchewan River.

“My good friend Jeff Penney and I were heading down the river — I like to go down the river in the canoe regularly — and we just pulled over at an inopportune spot because of an emergency bathroom break,” Mike Lees explained.

READ MORE: From ‘Jurassic Park’ to Blue Whales, meet the Canadian who assembles priceless fossils for the world’s museums

That’s when a strange looking rock caught their eye. It was covered in what they believe to be coal — but as they got a closer look, they realized it was actually a very old tree.

Right away, they set to work trying to secure the petrified wood, “Working with the scientists at the University of Alberta and with the people in Drumheller and just getting the permits and stuff on the go.”

Experts the men consulted believe the tree is from the time of the dinosaurs, making the fossil between 67 and 74 million years old.

“This one seems to be quite unique,” explained Lisa Budney, the collections and museums administrator at the University of Alberta.

“When I’ve been contacting other museums in Edmonton, none of us actually have a tree stump from within the city limits proper.

“It seems to be quite rare to find a piece that large,” Budney said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It seems to be quite rare to find a piece that large," Budney said.

At that time, Edmonton was part of a receding sea that extended from central Alberta up to Peace River.

“Our climate was getting cooler, it was more like a Mediterranean climate. Here we had lush forests of ferns and relatives of redwoods,” she said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Our climate was getting cooler, it was more like a Mediterranean climate. Here we had lush forests of ferns and relatives of redwoods," she said.

The biggest roadblock Lees and Penney faced in recovering the fossil was beating out mother nature.

READ MORE: Palaeontologist finds showcased at Royal Saskatchewan Museum

“Fossils start to break down when they’re exposed to air,” Budney said. “If we leave it there, that rock is going to break down.”

With winter fast approaching, the freezing river also posed a threat.

“Our banks are quite steep, so there’s always landslides and erosion taking place. So what’s here one day, might not be here the next.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Our banks are quite steep, so there's always landslides and erosion taking place. So what's here one day, might not be here the next."

The friends financed the recovery costs themselves: paying for permits, hiring Canadian Dewatering for a barge to pick up the fossil, and Cliff’s Towing to take it to the University of Alberta for safekeeping.

In all, it cost them around $4,000 — money they said was well-spent.

“It’s exciting! It’s going to be neat,” Lees exclaimed. “Everyone is going to be able to enjoy it. That was the main thing for us, right from the start.”

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Budney said the petrified wood will be examined by researchers, and admired by students on field trips at the university.

“We’ll clean it up and if it needs any preservation, like glue to stabilize any cracks, then we’ll do that. Then it will be put on display in this room, which is the paleontology museum,” she explained.

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Budney said there’s a lot that can be gleaned from the fossil.

“You can learn about how big things grew. You can figure out what kind of habitat it might have presented for other animals and plants. We can learn what animals were eating — all kinds of things.”

Budney said it’s rare for fossils to exist, nevermind be found. A few things increase the odds of something being fossilized.

“One is being buried quickly by fine sediments … that will help stop decomposition of the object being buried. The next thing you want to happen is, you have the specimen turning to stone. In petrification of wood, that’s a cell by cell replacement of the initial cells by quartz or another mineral.”

Budney compared the odds of finding the fossil, and recovering it, to finding a needle in a haystack.

“In terms of scientific value, this is the only stump from this time period that we know of from the Edmonton river valley, which makes it quite invaluable.”

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