The fifth edition of the Photo of the Week is of a fantastic trace fossil that I was shown while on a 4th year field trip in my undergrad. We were travelling around Quebec looking at evidence of the Sauk-Tippecanoe unconformity and the Taconic orogeny during the Ordovician. We traveled from Kingtson to Quebec City and spend a few days in the area exploring all of the fantastic geology around and even within the city.
The trace fossil, which is not of an actual organism but rather evidence of its behaviour, was seen at a stop about half way to Quebec City. I don't want to give away the exact location since we hid the fossil around the outcrop for future groups of students to use when they visit. The fossil is called
Rusophycus and is a trilobite resting trace. Trilobites were a very common, bottom-dwelling organism during the Ordovician, which ran from 488-443 million years ago. Sometimes, the trilobites, which had a hard exoskelton would dig themselves little holes, presumably to rest in, and these are preserved today as deep indentations in the rock that were then filled by mud and preserved.
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| A superb Rusophycus trace fossil in limestone. (Photo: Matt Herod) |
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| Trilobites (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Cheers and thanks for reading!
Matt
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