With no speaker scheduled for the April 9th meeting, our President will report out on recent activities – we did just host a Fossil Fair! – and catch us all up, as well as introduce new members to our Society.
The meeting link will be sent via separate email to paid members.
We are in the final stages of determining which workshop will take place on April 12th, and details of the April 20th fieldtrip will be circulated a week in advance. Look to your email for further details.
More details on the upcoming Fossil Fair, taking place at Tillicum Mall on the weekend of March 22 – 23. Please help get the word out!
The Fossil Fair is a hands-on, educational experience for all age groups, organized by recreational collectors (citizen scientists) and professionals. The public is encouraged to bring in fossils found in BC for identification. Specific activities for children include hands-on inspection of fossils, a scavenger hunt with prizes and fossil colouring and rubbings.
Good news from our VicPS president:
The event will be March 22 and 23rd, 10 AM to 3 PM at Tillicum Mall. The space is near the entrance to Winners, at the top of the escalators, in a very prominent part of the mall. We will have the entire space to ourselves, and Tillicum Mall will market the Fossil Fair as part of their Spring Break public education support for local organizations.
email from VicPS president Jerri Wilkins
Stay tuned for more details. For now, set those dates aside for some paleo learning and discovery!
The Alberta Palaeontological Society’s February meeting will take place on Friday, February 21, 2025 at 6:30 p.m PST at Mount Royal University, room B108. The meeting will be held in person and online through Zoom. The speaker will be presenting virtually. Abstract and bio below.
Zoom Link:
Topic: APS February Meeting
Time: Feb 21, 2025 07:30 PM Edmonton
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89351905754?pwd=midvXtxp8lLh7aEl4QvLK8ZI3Xc3ZD.1
Meeting ID: 893 5190 5754
Passcode: 814664
One tap mobile
+17193594580,,89351905754#,,,,*814664# US
+19292056099,,89351905754#,,,,*814664# US (New York)
The 15th British Columbia Paleontological Symposium will be held at the Florence Filberg Centre, August 22nd to 25th, 2025 in Courtenay, BC. The British Columbia Paleontological Alliance meets every two years to hold a symposium. This year the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society will host this symposium. The symposium will be supported by the Courtenay and District Museum. Please mark these dates on your calendar, and register here:
For this week’s SFU Department of Earth Sciences EASC Spring Seminar Series, Dr. Victoria Arbour will speak about “Dinosaurs of the Sustut Basin and Peace Region in northern British Columbia”.
Dinosaurs of the Sustut Basin and Peace Region of northern BC: British Columbia has a unique dinosaur fossil record that spans much of the Cretaceous Period, a time of major changes in terrestrial vertebrate ecosystems relating to changing sea level, climate, and vegetation patterns. Much of this fossil record is represented by ichnofossils, but new discoveries are increasing the record of dinosaur skeletal material in the province. This presentation will share recent results of Royal BC Museum-led fieldwork to increase our knowledge of the dinosaur fossil record of BC, and the implications of these new fossils to understanding dinosaur evolution in western North America during the Cretaceous.
| Meeting item | Details |
|---|---|
| Topic | Dinosaurs of the Sustut Basin and Peace Region of northern BC |
| When | Thursday, February 6th 2025, 2:30 pm (PST) |
| How to attend | SFU SSB 7172 Zoom link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/87939154761?pwd=bDMJQZtL31jgjTjMgxANC9q2psWcQN.1 |
You are invited to attend.
If you’re planning to hike the Burgess Shale this year, don’t miss this joint VIC/VAN PS presentation. Hear about the extraordinary life represented in BC’s Burgess Shale from David Moore, a professional geologist, seasoned communicator and Burgess Shale hiking guide. Join David for deep knowledge, breathtaking photos and practical advice for how to prepare for this physically challenging and intellectually inspiring adventure.
The Burgess Shale Foundation is a not-for-profit society with an education mandate similar to our own and it’s exciting to welcome David to present to our BC paleontology societies.
This event is ZOOM only, and open to anyone, so invite your friends. Note the early start (6:00 PM Pacific Time). A big shout out to David Moore for being generous with his time, John Fam for the great social media exposure for this presentation, and to Dan Bowden for his stellar poster skills!
| Meeting Item | Details |
|---|---|
| When | Wednesday, Feb 19th, 2025 06:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) |
| Zoom link | https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83960218157?pwd=VHLicHFPysGjJg1AaaN2wguf4ij71d.1 |
| Meeting ID | 839 6021 8157 |
| Passcode | 765964 |
The Alberta Palaeontological Society’s meeting will take place on Friday, January 17, 2025 at 7:30 p.m MST at Mount Royal University, room B108. The meeting will be held in person and online through Zoom.
| Event | Presenter | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Short Talk | Mona Trick, P.Eng., APS Lifetime Member | Royal Ontario Museum: Early Life Exhibit Abstract & Bio |
| Main Talk | Dr. Jon Noad | Dinosaurs Going Postal! |
Alberta Palaeontological Society is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: APS January Meeting
Time: Jan 17, 2025 07:30 PM MST
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/
Meeting ID: 816 0269 2497
Passcode: 888239
Courtesy of the North America Research Group, you may attend and enjoy listening to Liz Nesbitt, author of “Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State.” Dr. Nesbitt recently retired from her Curator position at the Burke Museum in Seattle. She will talk about her book and experiences in paleontology.
VicPS members will have received the Zoom meeting link details via email. If you have not received this info, please contact vicpalaeo@gmail.com ASAP.
On Wednesday, July 10th, at 7:30 pm PDT the Victoria Palaeontology Society presents Jaemin Lee, PhD Candidate, Department of Integrative Biology, UC Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, who speak on the topic
Understanding ontogeny in Deep Time: 29-million-year-old grasshopper ootheca (egg pod).
VicPS members should check the email they’ve received about this event for virtual meeting connection details, or join us IN PERSON at the Uptown Community Room.
About the presentation:
Reproductive ecology and ontogeny play a critical role in insect dispersal which shapes their biogeographic patterns. Ontogenetic strategies, such as holometaboly, are some of the most important traits contributing to the evolutionary success of insects. However, understanding the non-adult life history traits in Deep Time is challenging due to their ephemeral and soft-bodied nature.
I described a grasshopper egg pod using microtomography from the Oligocene John Day Formation, Oregon, together with Nick Famoso (NPS Paleontologist at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument) and Angela Lin (X-ray imaging core Director at University of Oregon). The specimen, preserving ~50 slightly-curved elliptic eggs and also the ovipositional strategy of laying an underground ootheca, represents the oldest fossilized grasshopper ootheca and also the first known orthopteran eggs in the fossil record. Due to the rarity of fossil insect eggs, systematic praxis have yet been established to systematically study them. However, the number of described fossil insect eggs has rapidly increased in the past decade, and is likely to continue increasing. So we proposed to apply an ootaxonomic system when studying fossilized insect eggs, to establish a standardized systematic practice, which is already practiced in fossil amniote eggs; and an ichnotaxonomic system that describes the ootheca-laying behavior, which has convergently evolved several times among insects.
Check out the research article or this CNN article to learn more!
