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Tag: muir creek

VicPS meeting Wednesday, January 12, 7 pm

Our first meeting of 2022 is PARTICIPATORY!!.

The evening will be structured around a photo tour of the 2021 field trip season, emphasizing specimens collected.  We’ll tap into our collective knowledge to understand the sites and fossils found.

To participate:

  1. Review the list below of sites/formations visited in 2021,
  2. Dive into your collection and select a few corresponding fossils (many of you have visited these sites/formations over the years!),
  3. Accept the Zoom meeting notice sent to paid VicPS members, and
  4. Show up, share the specimens and knowledge you’ve collected over the years, and help identify specimens.

Field Trip participants, please have your specimens on hand for show and tell.

List of VicPS 2021 Field Trip Locales:

  • Muir Creek – Sooke Formation
  • Northwest Bay – Pender (?) Formation
  • Chemainus River – Haslam Formation
  • Stephenson’s Point – Comox Formation
  • Ladysmith – Thicke Road area (Upper Comox (?), Lower Haslam (?)

See you Wednesday at the Zoom meeting!

Field trip planned for July 19

Pandemic limited your digging to your garden? Relief is in sight!

A field trip is planned for the easily accessible Muir Creek by Jerri Wilkins for July 19.  Please read this information about this trip. Note both

  • the COVID-19 instructions to ensure we all stay safe and healthy
  • the need for you to be a paid VicPS member to join this field trip

This Muir Creek field guide prepared by the RBCM with additional info and the photos will help you to identify many of the Sooke Formation fauna.

To participate, please let Jerri know in advance by email or via the Facebook page.

May 6 Field Trip report: Muir Creek

VicPS member Jerri Wilkins led the field to Muir Creek on May 6, and reports on the event:

Breaking rock at Muir Creek.

The VicPS took its first field trip of the season to Muir Creek, a 25 MYA late Oligocene site of the Sooke Formation, Carmanah Group. Under the gaze of two curious seagulls and overseen by a lone sea lion rock-basking at the tide line, six VicPS members and two guests tackled the beach-strewn soft sandstones in search of strand-line fauna. A handful of fresh sandstone blocks had fallen near the cliffs and dozens of chunks were scattered across the low tide zone, providing ample opportunity to find the usual abundance of Bruclarkia, Mytilus and clams of various sizes. An impressive horizon of gastropods on the underside of a large slab enticed two members to race against the tide to carefully split off part of the slab as a take away.

Several large tree trunks with patches of coalified wood remain deeply imbedded in the beach, and as per usual, no signs of crustaceans among the proliferation of shells, to Roy’s chagrin. Newest member Carol was amazed at the profusion of fossils and the father and son guests listened intently to instructions and meticulously freed a cockle. The search focused from where the cliffs begin on the Muir Creek end of the beach to the point just shy of Kirby Creek. Bright sun and warm temperatures made for a beautiful day for the first field trip of the season. Looking forward to a REDACTED trip in June, providing REDACTED.

To find out where we’re headed in June, become a member of VicPS!