Edmonton paddler discovers 65-million-year-old tree branch during riverbank pee break

Mike Lees has turn an pledge paleontologist after an unpretentious pee mangle in Edmonton’s river hollow final month led to a find of a petrified tree branch estimated to be from a time of a dinosaurs. 

“We pulled over during a unequivocally inappropriate mark for an puncture pee, and this is how we came across this sold item,” Lees pronounced in an talk Wednesday with CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM. 

“It’s a whole bottom of a tree stump. I’m no archeologist or paleontologist. The usually reason we detected it is since we roughly peed on it.”

“You count a rings in a tree, and that’s how we knew it was a tree and not a rock, even yet it looks like a mill and sounds like a rock.” 

Lees and a crony were paddling on a North Saskatchewan River in Oct when inlet called.

As they pulled their canoes onto a bank, something held Lees’s eye. A video of a confront captured his unfiltered excitement. 

‘This is a tree dude’

“I’ve never seen this before. This is a tree dude. It’s f–king stone,” Lees pronounced during a time. “It’s a fossilized f–king tree, man.  

“Look during these layers. This is bark. This is f–king bark. This has substantially been underneath here perpetually and ever and ever.” 

Lees sent photographs of a hoary to researchers during a Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta. Paleontologists there estimated a branch was during slightest 65 million years old, he said. 

“I would have never approaching to find something like this. It’s exciting,” Lees said.

“There are portions of a stream in downtown in Edmonton that are unequivocally untouched, and it’s a bullion cave for fossils and all sorts of neat things.”   

Despite a age, researchers were not penetrating to harmonise their possess mine of a rock. Due to erosion over a decades, it has changed from a strange location, creation it reduction scientifically valuable.

However, if Lees and his friends conduct to mislay it, researchers during a University of Alberta would be penetrating to have it, he said. He hopes a hoary ends adult on arrangement during a museum for a open to see. 

The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology was called about a hoary final month, said spokesperson Elaine Secord.

“Experts during a University of Alberta supposing us with their consultant opinions, indicating that a branch was no longer in strange stratigraphic position nor was it of high systematic value,” Secord said.

“Since this hoary was no longer in a strange context … there was no authorised objections to him stealing a hoary from where he found it.”

Petrified timber — timber incited into mill by mineralization — is common in Alberta, though like any paleontological find, there are manners around collecting it. 

Under Alberta’s Historical Resources Act, fossils can't be private from a provincial park, inhabitant park or designated stable area.

Removing petrified wood on open lands is also not allowed, unless it’s clearly manifest on the aspect of a belligerent and a assent is performed from a provincial government.

Boat and barge used to remove stump

The branch will strictly sojourn a skill of a Crown, though Lees has achieved a assent to pierce it. 

However, there is a problem. The one-metre branch is heavy — really, unequivocally heavy. 

“I’m guessing it’s a integrate thousand pounds for sure. We attempted to collect it up, and we failed.” 

Lees and his friends have staged mixed attempts to remove it. The initial try concerned a vast sport boat.  A second try concerned a boat done of sleet barrels and a organisation of 6 men.

At this point, in sequence to remove it, a helicopter would substantially be best.​​​​​– Mike Lees

Lees skeleton to build a bigger barge but with winter on a horizon, he’s using out of time. He fears a branch might disappear as a stream freezes this winter and afterwards floods subsequent spring. 

“We have a veteran organisation that’s going to come in with a boat and some machine that’s indispensable in sequence to lift it scrupulously and not penetrate a boat during a same time.

“At this point, in sequence to remove it, a helicopter would substantially be best.” 

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-river-valley-petrified-wood-fossil-1.5351416?cmp=rss