Alberta
Petrified Buffalo Hearts, Indian Maiden Breasts, Stalagmites and 70 Million Year Old Worm Poop
I recently attended the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards in Maskwacis, Alberta. I was fortunate to meet Dr. Russ Schnell. He is the Deputy Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Global Monitoring Division, in the United States. He grew up in the Battle River region and shared a fascinating story about discovering 70 million year old “Rosselia Worm Fossils” in 1958 in the bed of Castor Creek at the confluence of the Battle River.
Dr. Schnell was kind enough to allow me to publish a story he had written some years ago. I shot the video of Dr. Schnell as he was telling the story of how the fossils were formed.
The following story is adapted from the book “Stories from Life: Beauty Everyday As It happens”, 2016, Jane Ross ed., ISBN:978-0-9695841-2-4, Friesens Books, Altona, Manitoba, 325 pages (for a copy contact: Jane Ross <[email protected]>).
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Petrified Buffalo Hearts, Indian Maiden Breasts, Stalagmites and 70 Million Year Old Worm Poop
By Dr. Russ Schnell, B.Sc., Ph.D., Dr.Sci. (Hons).
It was a Saturday in August 1958. The summer day was hot up on the open prairie in east-central Alberta. The air was much cooler in the narrow valley, especially in the shadows. And most of the valley was in shadows from trees growing on the rims above the sandstone cliffs.
The rock was stored in my parent’s garage for 50 years until I brought it to Colorado, USA, where I now live.
About 1:00 PM, the noon wiener roast was over and we had waited the obligatory one hour after eating before going swimming. Everyone knew that you would get cramps and drown otherwise! No matter that the water was only 4 feet deep at the deepest, and then only behind the beaver dams. And that the water was to cold to do much other than dip a few times, dog paddle for 10 feet, then shout out that it was “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”1 and splash to shore and stand around a smoky campfire of poplar branches. It was too early in the day for mosquitoes, and even if they had been out, the eye-burning smoke would have kept them away from our tender, lily white bodies. Only our faces, necks and arms were tanned from spending every possible hour outside playing, hiking, swimming and riding bikes over the 20 square mile area of grasslands and creek valleys we considered our “territory”.
On this day, walking in the water bare footed on the bedrock, we would occasionally feel smooth, rounded, tapered stones under the water. We recovered some of these “stones” which were very heavy for their size and that appeared to be composed of iron. At least they looked the colour of rusted iron!
No one seemed too concerned that the sparks from the fire could ignite the surrounding dry grass and possibly spread for miles. Hey, we were six 9-12 years old boys, friends since toddlers, invincible, girls yet to be discovered, having another boy’s day out along the creek, 2 miles from Castor town. We stood naked, dripping and shivering, occasionally stirring the fire back to life to keep warm while roasting (flaming) marshmallows on slender willow switches we had cut and peeled earlier on which to roast the wieners.
1. “Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey” is possibly an old naval saying. A monkey was a brass plate with holes in which iron cannon balls were stacked. When it got very cold the brass would contract more than the iron cannon balls and therefore the balls would pop out and roll off the brass monkey! Of course we did not know that then. We had heard older boys make the “brass monkey” statement when they were around girls who would giggle, so we thought it was “big” to talk like that.
Before roasting the wieners, we had played “stretch”, a game where two boys stand facing each other then throw a hunting knife to stick no more than 2 inches to the side of an opponent’s bare foot. If the knife stuck in the ground and was not more than the allowed 2 inches away, the recipient of the thrown knife moved his foot to touch the blade and then took a turn throwing his hunting knife to stick near the foot of the first thrower. The game ended when one person’s legs could no longer stretch further apart, and that person was declared the loser. There were always losers, never winners! All boys carried hunting knives in hip scabbards that summer. It was the thing to do.
A more imaginative member of the group said they felt like fossil Indian maiden breasts.
Now, to a pivotal juncture in this story. One reason we played in this particular part of the valley was that the creek had cut through to bedrock making it easy to cross on a solid rock footing. In most other stretches of the creek, the bottom was soft mud into which you would sink up to your knees or deeper. On this day, walking in the water bare footed on the bedrock, we would occasionally feel smooth, rounded, tapered stones under the water. We recovered some of these “stones” which were very heavy for their size and that appeared to be composed of iron. At least they looked the colour of rusted iron! They were conical in shape and every one had a well formed, round indentation on the apex. On the broad end there was generally (but not always) a finger size hole near the centre. The stones varied in size from a large potato to a small watermelon.
Since we found the heart shaped rocks at the base of a cliff we “knew” was an Indian buffalo jump, some of us thought they were petrified buffalo hearts. Supporting this supposition was the fact that one of the group had found a black, perfectly shaped, sharp, fluted arrowhead near the creek on a sandy path worn by deer coming down the valley wall to cross the creek. A more imaginative member of the group said they felt like fossil Indian maiden breasts, not that any of us could confirm how a maiden’s breast felt. One such “petrified buffalo heart”, presented upside down, is shown below.
I took one of the “buffalo hearts” home in my backpack wondering, occasionally, over the hour hike back to town, why I was carrying a rock that was so heavy. The rock was stored in my parent’s garage for 50 years until I brought it to Colorado, USA, where I now live.
But, I digress from the timeline. On the hike back to town our ragtag group diverted to look at the body of a dead cow lying in a pasture. We had discovered it a few days earlier and were interested in looking at it again. On the discovery visit, the cow must have been dead for only a few days. It was bloated like an overextended balloon, there were flies buzzing around the mouth, eyes and anus, but otherwise the cow was as if sleeping on its side like a horse. On this second visit, the carcass was less bloated, but to our great surprise had been completely hollowed out from the rear.
There were no intestines, no lungs, no heart, no stomach, no blood. The interior cavity was dry as dust, the hide was intact and the “roasts” were still on the thighs. We surmised that coyotes had devoured the soft insides by chewing from the butt end into the body cavity.
Within a few minutes, he printed out a copy of a scientific paper on ancient marine worms that made burrows in the seafloor and left imprints of their existence.
Before leaving the carcass we convinced, cajoled or otherwise enticed the youngest boy, who wanted to be part of the “big boys” group, to play “coyote” and crawl into the interior of the cow. He did so to our great amusement as we beat on the hide covered ribs stretched taut like a large reddish drum. When we returned to the carcass a week or so later, it was picked apart and remnants were being pecked at by magpies. What meat remained was a seething mass of white maggots.
Fast forward 50 years to 2008. By this time I knew that the conical rock was not a petrified buffalo heart or a maiden’s breast. I was a slow learner! I was now convinced though that the rock was a stalagmite formed by iron rich water that had dripped onto a cave floor over thousands of years. I looked on the Internet for similar stalagmites, but did not find any. Still, sure of my analysis, I wrote a letter to the director of the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta enclosing photos, and described where these “stalagmites” were found and asking how old they were. I wrote the letter on heavy, expensive looking stationary with an official U.S. government letterhead festooned with gold embossed logos, and signed with a number of titles. I figured that might get his attention and a response.
A few weeks later I received an email thanking me for the letter and photos, and suggesting that the “stalagmite” was possibly a random iron accretion. Although not a paleontologist or geologist, I still believed that this rock was made by a deliberate, not random process. After further correspondence, Dr. David Eberth, Senior Research Scientist, Royal Tyrrell Museum, agreed to meet in Castor, Alberta in late June, 2009, and to come to the valley to look at what I still believed were stalagmites. I flew up from Colorado and David, myself, a sister and 5 friends from Castor proceeded out to the valley now owned by another friend from toddler days. He took us to an area of the creek where there were many of the “stalagmites” and we each collected a few specimens. David asked to see an exposed cliff so he could possibly find some of these iron rocks embedded in their natural habitat. Gary Dunkle, the land owner, duly took us to such an embankment and David found a few of the conical rocks imbedded in a loose, grey, alkaline soil in an exposed cliff face.
Then he told us that a world authority on such creatures was Professor Murray Gingras ’95 B.Sc., ’99 Ph.D., Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science, University of Alberta.
To my great surprise, the “stalagmites” were oriented conical point down in the cliff face. This is not how stalagmites form! David now lost some of his prior cool composure, as he convinced me that my earlier conjectures were incorrect, that we were looking at a 70 million year old seashore deposit, and these iron accretions had probably once been made by something related to the seashore.
In a humorous throwback to events 50 years earlier, one of the fossils that David had excavated became dislodged and rolled down the steep cliff splashing into the creek behind a beaver dam. We convinced Eric Neilson ’88, B.Sc. Agriculture and ’09, B.Ed. and now a local school teacher, to wade into the water and retrieve the fossil. The water was over four feet deep and Eric had to fully submerge to finally locate and recover the fossil that was embedded in silt. There was no fire to get warm and dry beside this time!
We returned to the insurance and real-estate offices of Dale Emmett, one of the members on this current expedition, where David used a computer to begin looking up something called “Rosselia” on the Internet. Within a few minutes, he printed out a copy of a scientific paper on ancient marine worms that made burrows in the seafloor and left imprints of their existence. Then he told us that a world authority on such creatures was Professor Murray Gingras ’95 B.Sc., ’99 Ph.D., Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science, University of Alberta. Small world!
We departed the office in triumph and sojourned to a nearby bar where Ed Ries, a local rancher and another member of the days’ expedition, bought us a round of beer to toast our success. While at the bar, Brenda Scott ’73, B.Ed. (sister, also on the excursion) brought out some perfectly preserved fossil snails that she had collected the day prior in a nearby fossil bed. David was quite interested, as these were fresh water snails that rarely fossilize into such perfect iron accretions. He wanted to know where they are found, but we declined to tell him as only a few members of our family know the location, and we do not want the location to be picked over. Someday we might show him, but that will be another story.
So how did worms living in the sediment in a 70 million old marine seashore make 8 pound “petrified buffalo hearts?” First, the worm is not like the garden variety earthworm one finds digging in Alberta garden soil. Instead it was thought be an elongated creature (let us say about one foot long) living vertically in seabed sediment with tentacles that could spread out over the seafloor to capture small organic particle or small creatures touching the tentacles. A stylized depiction of the worm and its burrow is shown below.
The fossilized worm burrow lay at the bottom of the ocean for eons becoming covered by many feet of sediment.
The worm would slide down into its burrow to digest its meals, to poop and to get away from predators. To accommodate the poop, it would push out the sides of its vertical tube home which was probably easy to do as it was living is soft sediment. Eventually the worm would die or move on to a new home leaving the organic evidence of its existence within its seabed home.
Now for the rare events that produced the “petrified buffalo hearts” and exposed them for observation today. At some point 70 million years ago, the organic-rich waste in the worm hole was brought into sustained contact with a freshwater stream carrying dissolved iron compounds. This iron slowly fossilized the poop and food detritus. The fossilized worm burrow lay at the bottom of the ocean for eons becoming covered by many feet of sediment.
Eventually the land rose and the fossils were exposed by the Castor Creek that eroded through an uplifted area of the former beach. Some of the exposed fossils settled on bedrock where they are found today. Others are still slowly sinking in the muck at the bottom of the creek.
The Castor Rosselia fossils are rather rare in that they are well formed, well preserved iron accretions, and in the words of Dr. Gingras in an email to Dr. Eberth and copied to me, he states: “Rosselia are normally much smaller than the cannon-balls you show”.
And so we come full circle in a small valley in East-Central Alberta; cannon-balls to cannon-balls.
Dr. Russ Schnell, Deputy Director, NOAA, Global Monitoring Division, Boulder, CO
Russ was born and raised in Alberta, Canada and educated at the Universities of Alberta; Newfoundland; Hawaii; Wales; Wyoming and Colorado. He holds degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Atmospheric Resources and Atmospheric Science.
Dr. Schnell discovered biological ice nuclei in 1970 now used in ski hill snowmaking worldwide, and by their removal on plants, prevention of frost damage to -3C. These nuclei are important in precipitation formation with papers from around the globe now being published on the topic.
His research, as Director of the Arctic Gas and Aerosol project in the 1980s, established that Arctic Haze was air pollution from Eastern Europe. For 7 years he was director of the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, where the steady global increase in carbon dioxide that forms the backbone of the greenhouse gas atmospheric warming, was established.
He has conducted research on ozone destruction in the Arctic and Antarctic, ozone production from fossil fuel production and on the changing chemical composition of the atmosphere driving climate change.
He has published 125 scientific papers, nine of them in Nature, a premier scientific journal, and holds patents in plant science and biochemistry.
Russ has lived, traveled or worked in 92 countries, and on every continent including the North and South Poles.
In 2002, he received the NOAA Administrator’s Award for his work as director of the Mauna Loa Observatory.
In 2007, Dr. Schnell was recognized as one of the co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In 2008, he was awarded the U.S. Department of Commerce Silver Medal the highest honorary recognition the Department bestows and in 2011 both the NOAA Distinguished Career and the NOAA OAR Outstanding Science Communicator Awards.
Dr. Schnell’s non-work interests include building wooden trains for children, “Little Free Libraries” for donation and real-estate investing.
He grew up near the Battle River in East Central Alberta. I met him while attending the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards held in Maskwacis, AB on September 21, 2019.
Alberta
Free Alberta Strategy trying to force Trudeau to release the pension calculation
Just over a year ago, Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner unveiled a report exploring the potential risks and benefits of an Alberta Pension Plan.
The report, prepared by pension analytics firm LifeWorks – formerly known as Morneau Shepell, the same firm once headed by former federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau – used the exit formula outlined in the Canada Pension Plan Act to determine that if the province exits, it would be entitled to a large share of CPP assets.
According to LifeWorks, Alberta’s younger, predominantly working-class population, combined with higher-than-average income levels, has resulted in the province contributing disproportionately to the CPP.
The analysis pegged Alberta’s share of the CPP account at $334 billion – 53% of the CPP’s total asset pool.
We’ve explained a few times how, while that number might initially sound farfetched, once you understand that Alberta has contributed more than it’s taken out, almost every single year CPP has existed, while other provinces have consistently taken out more than they put in and technically *owe* money, it starts to make more sense.
But, predictably, the usual suspects were outraged.
Media commentators and policy analysts across the country were quick to dismiss the possibility that Alberta could claim such a significant portion. To them, the idea that Alberta workers had been subsidizing the CPP for decades seemed unthinkable.
The uproar prompted an emergency meeting of Canada’s Finance Ministers, led by now-former federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. Alberta pressed for clarity, with Horner requesting a definitive number from the federal government.
Freeland agreed to have the federal Chief Actuary provide an official calculation.
If you think Trudeau should release the pension calculation, click here.
Four months later, the Chief Actuary announced the formation of a panel to “interpret” the CPP’s asset transfer formula – a formula that remains contentious and could drastically impact Alberta’s entitlement.
(Readers will remember that how this formula is interpreted has been the matter of much debate, and could have a significant impact on the amount Alberta is entitled to.)
Once the panel completed its work, the Chief Actuary promised to deliver Alberta’s calculated share by the fall. With December 20th marking the last day of fall, Alberta has finally received a response – but not the one it was waiting for:
“We received their interpretation of the legislation, but it did not contain a number or even a formula for calculating a number,” said Justin Brattinga, Horner’s press secretary.
In other words, the Chief Actuary did the complete opposite of what they were supposed to do.
The Chief Actuary’s job is to calculate each province’s entitlement, based on the formula outlined in the CPP Act.
It is not the Chief Actuary’s job to start making up new interpretations of the formula to suit the federal government’s agenda.
In fact, the idea that the Chief Actuary spent all this time working on the issue, and didn’t even calculate a number is preposterous.
There’s just no way that that’s what happened.
Far more likely is that the Chief Actuary did run the numbers, using the formula in the CPP Act, only for them – and the federal government – to realize that Alberta’s LifeWorks calculation is actually about right.
Cue panic, a rushed attempt to “reinterpret” the formula, and a refusal to provide the number they committed to providing.
In short, we simply don’t believe that the Chief Actuary didn’t, you know, “actuarialize” anything.
For decades, Alberta has contributed disproportionately to the CPP, given its higher incomes and younger population.
Despite all the bluster in the media, this is actually common sense.
A calculation reflecting this reality would not sit well with other provinces, which have benefited from these contributions.
By withholding the actual number, Ottawa confirms the validity of Alberta’s position.
The refusal to release the calculation only adds fuel to the financial firestorm already underway in Ottawa.
Albertans deserve to know the truth about their contributions and entitlements.
We want to see that number.
If you agree, and want to see the federal government’s calculation on what Alberta is owed, sign our petition – Tell Trudeau To Release The Pension Calculation:
Once you’ve signed, send this petition to your friends, family, and all Albertans.
Thank you for your support!
Regards,
The Free Alberta Strategy Team
Alberta
Ford and Trudeau are playing checkers. Trump and Smith are playing chess
By Dan McTeague
Ford’s calls for national unity – “We need to stand united as Canadians!” – in context feels like an endorsement of fellow Electric Vehicle fanatic Trudeau. And you do wonder if that issue has something to do with it. After all, the two have worked together to pump billions in taxpayer dollars into the EV industry.
There’s no doubt about it: Donald Trump’s threat of a blanket 25% tariff on Canadian goods (to be established if the Canadian government fails to take sufficient action to combat drug trafficking and illegal crossings over our southern border) would be catastrophic for our nation’s economy. More than $3 billion in goods move between the U.S. and Canada on a daily basis. If enacted, the Trump tariff would likely result in a full-blown recession.
It falls upon Canada’s leaders to prevent that from happening. That’s why Justin Trudeau flew to Florida two weeks ago to point out to the president-elect that the trade relationship between our countries is mutually beneficial.
This is true, but Trudeau isn’t the best person to make that case to Trump, since he has been trashing the once and future president, and his supporters, both in public and private, for years. He did so again at an appearance just the other day, in which he implied that American voters were sexist for once again failing to elect the nation’s first female president, and said that Trump’s election amounted to an assault on women’s rights.
Consequently, the meeting with Trump didn’t go well.
But Trudeau isn’t Canada’s only politician, and in recent days we’ve seen some contrasting approaches to this serious matter from our provincial leaders.
First up was Doug Ford, who followed up a phone call with Trudeau earlier this week by saying that Canadians have to prepare for a trade war. “Folks, this is coming, it’s not ‘if,’ it is — it’s coming… and we need to be prepared.”
Ford said that he’s working with Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to put together a retaliatory tariff list. Spokesmen for his government floated the idea of banning the LCBO from buying American alcohol, and restricting the export of critical minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries (I’m sure Trump is terrified about that last one).
But Ford’s most dramatic threat was his announcement that Ontario is prepared to shut down energy exports to the U.S., specifically to Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, if Trump follows through with his plan. “We’re sending a message to the U.S. You come and attack Ontario, you attack the livelihoods of Ontario and Canadians, we’re going to use every tool in our toolbox to defend Ontarians and Canadians across the border,” Ford said.
Now, unfortunately, all of this chest-thumping rings hollow. Ontario does almost $500 billion per year in trade with the U.S., and the province’s supply chains are highly integrated with America’s. The idea of just cutting off the power, as if you could just flip a switch, is actually impossible. It’s a bluff, and Trump has already called him on it. When told about Ford’s threat by a reporter this week, Trump replied “That’s okay if he does that. That’s fine.”
And Ford’s calls for national unity – “We need to stand united as Canadians!” – in context feels like an endorsement of fellow Electric Vehicle fanatic Trudeau. And you do wonder if that issue has something to do with it. After all, the two have worked together to pump billions in taxpayer dollars into the EV industry. Just over the past year Ford and Trudeau have been seen side by side announcing their $5 billion commitment to Honda, or their $28.2 billion in subsidies for new Stellantis and Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plants.
Their assumption was that the U.S. would be a major market for Canadian EVs. Remember that “vehicles are the second largest Canadian export by value, at $51 billion in 2023 of which 93% was exported to the U.S.,”according to the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association, and “Auto is Ontario’s top export at 28.9% of all exports (2023).”
But Trump ran on abolishing the Biden administration’s de facto EV mandate. Now that he’s back in the White House, the market for those EVs that Trudeau and Ford invested in so heavily is going to be much softer. Perhaps they’d like to be able to blame Trump’s tariffs for the coming downturn rather than their own misjudgment.
In any event, Ford’s tactic stands in stark contrast to the response from Alberta, Canada’s true energy superpower. Premier Danielle Smith made it clear that her province “will not support cutting off our Alberta energy exports to the U.S., nor will we support a tariff war with our largest trading partner and closest ally.”
Smith spoke about this topic at length at an event announcing a new $29-million border patrol team charged with combatting drug trafficking, at which said that Trudeau’s criticisms of the president-elect were, “not helpful.” Her deputy premier Mike Ellis was quoted as saying, “The concerns that president-elect Trump has expressed regarding fentanyl are, quite frankly, the same concerns that I and the premier have had.” Smith and Ellis also criticized Ottawa’s progressively lenient approach to drug crimes.
(For what it’s worth, a recent Léger poll found that “Just 29 per cent of [Canadians] believe Trump’s concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking from Canada to the U.S. are unwarranted.” Perhaps that’s why some recent polls have found that Trudeau is currently less popular in Canada than Trump at the moment.)
Smith said that Trudeau’s criticisms of the president-elect were, “not helpful.” And on X/Twitter she said, “Now is the time to… reach out to our friends and allies in the U.S. to remind them just how much Americans and Canadians mutually benefit from our trade relationship – and what we can do to grow that partnership further,” adding, “Tariffs just hurt Americans and Canadians on both sides of the border. Let’s make sure they don’t happen.”
This is exactly the right approach. Smith knows there is a lot at stake in this fight, and is not willing to step into the ring in a fight that Canada simply can’t win, and will cause a great deal of hardship for all involved along the way.
While Trudeau indulges in virtue signaling and Ford in sabre rattling, Danielle Smith is engaging in true statesmanship. That’s something that is in short supply in our country these days.
As I’ve written before, Trump is playing chess while Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford are playing checkers. They should take note of Smith’s strategy. Honey will attract more than vinegar, and if the long history of our two countries tell us anything, it’s that diplomacy is more effective than idle threats.
Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
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