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Solomon Thayer, from Lubec, Maine, wrote to Professor Cleaveland at Bowdoin College in October 1819, noting that around the Windsor gypsum quarries there were holes in the earth like tunnels [...]

The Maritimes Basin of Atlantic Canada is well known for its rich ichnological resources that span the Mississippian through earliest Permian periods. Upper Pennsylvanian strata along the Northumberland Strait of [...]

A fragment of a right dentary with one postcanine tooth from the Upper Triassic (Rhaetian) Scots Bay Member of the McCoy Brook Formation at Wasson Bluff, Nova Scotia, Canada, represents the first record of the tritylodontid cynodont Oligokyphus from the early Mesozoic of eastern North America. In addition, three dissociated postcranial bones from the same horizon and locality are referable to derived cynodont therapsids. One of these elements, a nearly complete right humerus, can be assigned to Tritylodontidae. Two other bones, an ulna and incomplete ischium, belong to indeterminate derived cynodonts but show no features allowing more precise taxonomic identification. The presence of Oligokyphus in the McCoy Brook Formation provides additional evidence for the remarkably wide geographic distribution of many latest Triassic and Early Jurassic continental tetrapods. Un fragment d'os dentaire droit comprenant une dent postcanine recupere du Membre de Scots Bay du Trias superieur (Rhetien) de la formation de McCoy Brook, a Wasson Bluff (Nouvelle-Ecosse, Canada), represente le premier specimen signale du cynodonte tritylodontide Oligokyphus du Mesozoique precoce de l'est de l'Amerique du Nord. En outre, trois os postcraniens dissocies provenant du meme horizon et de la meme localite peuvent etre renvoyes a des therapsides cynodontes derives. Un de ces elements, un humerus droit presque complet, peut etre affecte aux tritylodontides. Deux autres os, un ulna et un ischion incomplet, appartiennent a des cynodontes derives indetermines, mais ne presentent aucune caracteristique en permettant l'identification taxinomique plus precise. La presence d'Oligokyphus dans la Formation de McCoy Brook fournit des preuves supplementaires de la repartition geographique remarquablement grande de nombreux tetrapodes continentaux de la fin du Trias et du Jurassique precoce. [Traduit par la Redaction], Introduction The Fundy rift basin in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada, is the largest and most northern of the exposed rift basins of the Newark Supergroup in eastern North [...]

Triassic strata of the Economy Member of the Wolfville Formation (Newark Supergroup) exposed along the shorelines in Colchester County, Nova Scotia, have yielded an assemblage of continental tetrapods that is clearly different from other Triassic tetrapod communities in eastern North America, including the Late Triassic (Carnian) one from the overlying Evangeline Member of the Wolfville Formation. Although dissociated and fragmentary, the skeletal elements document the presence of a lonchorhynchine trematosaurid and at least two taxa of capitosauroid temnospondyls, procolophonid parareptiles, several taxa of archosauromorph reptiles, and a kannemeyeriiform dicynodont synapsid. Particularly noteworthy is the first definite record of the long-necked archosauromorph Tanystropheus from eastern North America. The strata of the Economy Member were deposited in a semiarid setting but the presence of various temnospondyls indicates the existence of perennial bodies of water. The age of this unit has long been regarded as Middle Triassic (Anisian to Ladinian) based on the tetrapod record, and the present study supports this assessment. The tetrapod assemblage most closely resembles those from the upper Moenkopi Formation of the American Southwest and the upper Middle to Upper Buntsandstein of Germany. The Economy Member is the oldest known Triassic tetrapod-bearing stratigraphic unit as well as the first occurrence of Middle Triassic continental tetrapods in eastern North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dr. Erwin Zodrow was awarded the Gesner Medal by the Atlantic Geoscience Society in 2021, recognizing his contributions to palaeobotany and knowledge about the Cape Breton fossil fern forests. Born in Germany in 1934, Erwin moved to Canada at the age of twenty. He graduated with a BSc from St. Francis Xavier University in 1962, and then completed a Masters of Mineral Economics at Pennsylvania State University in 1968. Erwin was made Assistant Professor of what is now Cape Breton University (CBU) in 1970 and completed a PhD (Geology) in Applied Statistics from the University of Western Ontario in 1973. Erwin was also an active Research Associate of the Nova Scotia Museum from 1977 until 1997 and taught at Cape Breton University for nearly 30 years. After retiring in 1999, Dr. Zodrow continued an active research program as an appointed Emeritus Professor, authoring another fifty papers in 'retirement'. Dr. Zodrow passed away on December 1, 2022. Beyond publications and students, Dr. Zodrow also left a physical legacy: the largest collection of Carboniferous fossil plants in Atlantic Canada. Many of these specimens, including type material, were recovered from horizons that are no longer easily accessible. A portion of this material was moved to Sydney Mines in 2004, where it forms the core display collections of the Cape Breton Fossil Centre (CBFC), a public-facing institution that has welcomed tens of thousands of visitors. In 2021, a second lot of his collection was transferred to the CBFC, seven cabinets and over eighty drawers of material, including his figured specimens. Additional material, beyond the capacity of the CBFC to house remains at CBU. In addition to celebrating Dr. Zodrow's life and contributions, this session is intended to initiate a discussion about opportunities arising from his collections, to further paleontology and science education in Nova Scotia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employed in the mapping unit of the Department of Nova Scotia Mines and Minerals from 1950 to 1977, Samuel Gaskin is recognized as the first African Nova Scotian to work in the provincial geoscience department. Samuel Gaskin's father and mother both emigrated from Barbados to Halifax in 1902, a period of increased immigration for employment with the Dominion Iron and Steel Company in Cape Breton. Samuel's father Abraham worked initially as a carpenter and then owned a store on Brunswick Street with his second wife Lillian in the early 1920s. Samuel and his brother Kenneth were born and educated in Halifax at this time. In 1950, Samuel Gaskin was one of the first recruits into the Canadian Intelligence Corps' 3 Intelligence Company, and eventually attained the final rank of Master Warrant Officer. Gaskin was highly respected for his expertise in aerial photo interpretation, map making, and training of fellow unit members and cadets. He participated in annual summer exercises at the Canadian Army's Camp Borden in Ontario, and in 1964 and 1967 he and his unit distinguished themselves in winning many national awards. Also in 1950, Gaskin was hired as the Mapping Photographer in the Nova Scotia Department of Mines. A booklet published by the Department explained the new process of generating an updated and more accurate map of Nova Scotia. Gaskin is shown in photographs along with the other team members, including Eva Duncan and Don Bernasconi. The first map that credits Samuel Gaskin's contributions was the 1956 edition of "Minerals of Nova Scotia". Samuel's brother Kenneth was also active in the public service, as the Recording Secretary, Army of the Nova Scotia Civil Service Association. This biographic poster was developed to highlight Samuel Gaskins family history and recognize Gaskin's important contributions to geology and mapping in Nova Scotia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May of 1873, the HMS Challenger sailed into port at Halifax Harbour. As the second stop of a multi-year oceanography expedition, the Challenger visit to Halifax had a lasting impact on the geoscience of Nova Scotia. The site of glacial striations at the Prince of Wales Tower at Point Pleasant Park had been a known geological destination. Charles Lyell had visited the site in 1842 and Louis Agassiz in 1844, when both were debating the glacial (iceburg) drift versus glacial theories. During the visit of the Challenger in Halifax, the Museum Curator, Rev. David Honeyman took the crew on a geology excursion to visit the glacial striations in the park. As an artefact of the expeditions notes and observations, a photograph was taken by a member of the crew. This photo is the oldest known of the glacial striations that remain visible at the site. In the decade that followed, David Honeyman continued to make detailed observations about the surficial geology around Halifax Harbour. He noted other striations, measured their directions and plotted these on an Admiralty Chart from 1854. Honeyman also noted that amygdaloidal basalt cobbles observed at Cow Bay had been moved, by glacial action, from their original site at Blomidon, a direction that corresponded with the glacial striations. Honeyman shared his observations at the Geologists' Association meeting in 1883 and the British Association of Science meeting in Montreal in 1884. This poster brings attention to the significant site of urban geology at Point Pleasant Park. Consideration is given to options and issues for developing a small interpretive panel at the site of the glacial striations. The interpretive panel has opportunity to highlight the significance of this geoheritage site, show historic maps, and provide a modern interpretive depiction of glacial cover and ice flow directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperphalangy is a digit morphology in which increased numbers of phalanges are arranged linearly within a digit beyond the plesiomorphic condition. We analyse patterns and processes of hyperphalangy by considering previous definitions and occurrences of hyperphalangy among terrestrial and secondarily aquatic extant and fossil taxa (cetaceans, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs), and recent studies that elucidate the factors involved in terrestrial autopod joint induction. Extreme hyperphalangy, defined as exceeding a threshold condition of 4/6/6/6/6, is shown only to be found among secondarily aquatic vertebrates with a flipper limb morphology. Based on this definition, hyperphalangy occurs exclusively in digits II and III among extant cetaceans. Previous reports of cetacean embryos having more phalanges than adults is clarified and shown to be based on cartilaginous elements not ossified phalanges. Developmental prerequisites for hyperphalangy include lack of cell death in interdigital mesoderm (producing a flipper limb) and maintenance of a secondary apical ectodermal ridge (AER), which initiates digit elongation and extra joint patterning. Factors of the limb-patterning pathways located in the interdigital mesoderm, including bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), BMP antagonists, fibroblast growth factors (FGFs), growth/differentiation factor-5 (GDF-5), Wnt-14 and ck-erg, are implicated in maintenance of the flipper limb, secondary AER formation, digit elongation and additional joint induction leading to hyperphalangy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]