18 December 2014

One for the ichnologists

Posted by Callan Bentley

For those inclined toward trace fossils…

IMG_3077

…This is from Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. I saw it on the trail to Consolation Lakes from Moraine Lake. I do not recall rock type – could be dolostone, could be Gog quartzite. It’s float (loose; not in situ), but I infer the photographed surface is the underside of the bedding plane; I’d be fine being totally wrong about that, though. There are two things I would like explained/identified here: (1) the prominent, arcuate ridges (which I infer to be trace fossils of some kind) and (2) the finer features, packed in sets, sometimes apparently emanating perpendicularly from the larger arcs, but also present where there are no “arcs.” They look like rodent “gnawing” marks to my untrained eye.

Anyone want to take a stab at identifying these features, and interpreting them for the sake of a poor geoblogger’s education?