Fossil Dig

This weekend we had a very unique opportunity to dig for fossils. The Canadian Fossil Discovery Center is a museum in Morden, Manitoba that specializes in Marine Reptile fossils that depict the sea life that lived here when central Canada was part of the Western Interior Seaway. This past Saturday they were offering free passes to the museum and free dig-site tours, including instruction and experience. I think I may have been more excited about this than my kids since this is truly one of my "have to do before I die" things but we all had such a great time. We're planning to go again if they offer it next year and hopefully spend more time there. But, even though we were only at the dig site for an hour or so, the boys found a significant fossil fragment (the curator thought maybe a piece of a Mosasaur rib) and Mica & her friend Sarah found a fish vertebrae.

Cale & Egan with the Curator, Jackie - shoveling into a sifter and then carefully brushing through to look for the pinkish-white hue of fossil that stands out against the yellowish Bentonite and black Shale.




Egan brushing with the paintbrushes they provided.

The fossil fragment they uncovered while brushing the shale away.

Some perspective on how big the piece was.

Mica & Sarah's fish vertebrae find. Small, but exciting nonetheless.

Back at the Museum, they let the kids stand under the replica of Bruce the Mosasaur, a 43-foot long Mosasaur. The museum recovered almost 70% of his fossilized remains on a dig site close to Morden. Read more about Bruce here.

We spent some time on a guided tour of the collection room actually getting to handle some of the fossils they've collected, including (below) a jaw bone from Bruce.

And of course, the day had to end with some goofy antics and the staging of a giant Water Reptile attack.