What Fossils Can Be Obtained In The Scarborough Bluffs Of Toronto?

[JUAN EMMANUEL]

I often look up online in the internet for fossils that can be found at these bluffs but no resources tell me what specifically can be found there but I hopefully do wish to find some animal fossils there if possible. I wish to visit it this summer after spending a day back in May exploring the Don Valley Brickworks Park. Has anyone here ever visited and explored the Scarborough Bluffs before?

[piranha]

These papers have some excellent info:
 

Harington, C.R. (1990)
Vertebrates of the last interglaciation in Canada: a review, with new data.
Géographie physique et Quaternaire, 44(3):375-387
 

PDF LINK
 

Karrow, P.F. (1990)
Interglacial beds at Toronto, Ontario.
Géographie physique et Quaternaire, 44(3):289-297
 

PDF LINK
 

Toronto (Don Valley)
 

The Don Formation, where it is exposed at the Don Valley Brickyard in Toronto, is perhaps the best known deposit considered to be of Sangamonian interglacial age in Canada (Karrow, 1990). Fossils are from an 8 m-thick layer of stratified, cross-bedded clay and sand underlain by the York Till of probable lllinoian age and overlain by the Scarborough Formation of Early Wisconsinan age. The Don Formation contains fossils of: whitefish (Coregoninae), trout (Salmoninae), pike or muskellunge (Esox sp.), shiner (cf. Notropis sp.), channel catfish (lctalurus punctatus), burbot (Lota lota), yellow perch (Perca flavescens), a fish like the freshwater drum (cf. Aplodinotus grunniens), and a member of the sculpin family (Cottidae) (Crossman and Harington, 1970; mainly S. L. Cumbaa, personal communication, 1987); as well as woodchuck (Marmota monax) and giant beaver (Castoroides ohioensis) (Coleman. 1933). Organic material from the Don Formation has yielded a radiocarbon date of >46,000 years BP (L-409), and Karrow (1984) has reported amino-acid determinations compatible with the Sangamon Interglaciation.
 

The Don Formation appears to have been deposited in a freshwater estuary at the edge of a large lake that was at least 18 m higher than the present level of Lake Ontario. Evidence for this conclusion comes from analyses of remains of freshwater ostracodes, mollusc shells, wood, leaves, pollen, diatoms and insects that became buried in sediments. Several of the fishes represented suggest a relatively warm, turbid, slow-moving stream with weedy spots, whereas the presence of woodchucks and giant beavers suggests nearby open forest, with patches of grassland and lakes or ponds (Harington, 1989b). The lower part of the deposits includes pollen of a flora indicating a climate 2-3'C warmer than at present (Terasmae, 1960; and see Karrow, 1989. p. 1079 for further discussion of the paleoenvironments).
 

Toronto (Pottery Road)
 

The Pottery Road deposits consist of fluvial Late Sangamonian or Early Wisconsinan sediments occupying valleys cut in the Scarborough Formation at Toronto that are correlated with the Saint-Pierre Sediments (Karrow, 1984). Enclosed mammalian remains include bear (Ursidae. possibly brown bear Ursus arctos), mammoth or mastodon, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), stag-moose (Cervalces sp.) and bison (Bison sp.) (Bensley, 1913; Coleman, 1913, 1933: Harington, 1978). A problematic muskox (Ovibos moschatus) bone from Scarborough Bluffs may also belong with this fauna (Churcher and Karrow, 1977). Ferland et al. (1988) consider that the 75,000 years BP Saint-Pierre Sediments were deposited during the last phases of the Sangamon interglaciation (marine oxygen isotope stage 5). However, Eyles (1987) suggests that the Pottery Road deposits are the most proximal and glacially-influenced faciès of the prograding delta (Scarborough Formation), and that perhaps the incised channels were due to melt-stream discharges from "... an Early Wisconsinan Laurentide Ice Sheet". He notes that pollen studies by J. H. McAndrews show that the cooling trend evident in the upper Don sediments continues without a break into the overlying Scarborough clays.