Another set of millions year old fossils have been found in Tumbler Ridge.
The Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation announced this week that a set of ankylosaur tracks were found in 97-million-year old rocks being blasted and excavated at Pattern Development's Meikle Wind Project site.
Moberly Lake resident Warren Garbitt, an excavator operator with 4Evergreen Resources, made the find in late July.
"This find is particularly significant because of one deep footprint with three visible digit impressions," said Rich McCrea, curator of palaeontology at the Tumbler Ridge Museum and Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre, in a statement released Tuesday.
"The first ankylosaur tracks described from Canada had four obvious digit impressions, however we have encountered a number of three-toed morphs which we are currently describing in the scientific literature. This find then adds to the small, but growing population of three-toed ankylosaur tracks."
Despite the absence of provincial legislation to protect fossil finds, the foundation credited Pattern development and Garbitt for alerting scientists and protecting the find.
The foundation says Pattern has offered to move the slab of tracks to the museum for future display.
"Unearthing this special find has brought a lot of excitement to the construction of BC's largest wind power project," said Meikle project manager Michael Thompson.
The unearthed tracks are the latest in a line of discoveries near Tumbler Ridge this summer.
Others finds include crocodilian trackways, theropod footprints - some of the oldest dinosaur trackways yet discovered in the region - three large, three-dimensional Triassic coelacanth skulls, and the most complete thalattosaur skeleton ever found in North America, according to the foundation.
