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What kind of fossils can you find in Toronto, Canada?


Walmart Bag

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Hey, im a upcoming undergrad moving to Canada at the Univeristy of Waterloo in Toronto. Up till 6th grade, I lived in India, and then moved back to New Jersey (where I was born) for one year. In that year, I went to the Big Brook preseve and a few other locations where I found awesome things by sifting such as Shark teeth, ratfish mouthplates, belemnites, etc. Of course I moved back to india and theres no fossils that I can find over here. Now that I am moving to Toronoto, Canada, I wanted to see if theres any such fossils over there? For instance, I looked up if I can find shark teeth over there and everybody said that it was almost impossible. Yet when I look online, people still say that there could be pleistocene fossils in the area.

 

I am very unsure what that is (sorry I am kind of a beginner at fossil hunting hehe), but I wanted to ask you guys what type of fossils I can find there, where do I find them, and what is the method of extracting these fossils?

 

Thank you guys!

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You can find the Georgian Bay formation there well exposed in many of the creeks. The Leda Clay is exposed but there aren’t the shark teeth and such.

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@Walmart Bag It's not quite clear to me exactly where you are moving to. If you are going to the University of Waterloo, then that is not in Toronto, but in Waterloo, which is a city in the province of Ontario as is of course Toronto. As to the fossils in Ontario, including Toronto, they are practically all from Paleozoic deposits with a good amount of glacial till in the south on top of the bedrock. The chances of finding shark teeth, with the odd exception of extremely rare finds in Devonian deposits (and these teeth are very small and don't look at all like the ones to be found in Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits) are even less than minimal. In Ontario you would be finding such fossils as trilobites, brachiopods or orthocone nautiloids for instance. And yes, Pleistocene fossils are found sporadically in Ontario, but to my knowledge, there is no record of any shark teeth found in these deposits. I would suggest you peruse this section in our forum to give you an impression of Ontarian paleontology.

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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I second Roger’s comment. I also think you would be very benefited by reading through the “Fossil Hunting Trips” section and look at the pinned threads. You should read up on how to interpret about your area’s geology and what can be found. India has a rich paleontological offering, so learning about fossil collecting will help you find fossils wherever you are.

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