Fossils
Various plant and animal fossils have been found in the Chuckanut Formation. A fossil turtle shell was recovered from the formation at Clark Point in 1960. The specimen was held in the private collection of the finders until 1981 when it was examined at Western Washington University and identified as an indeterminate member of the Testudinoidea superfamily. Reexamination of the fossil in 2000 showed specimen to belong to the Trionychidae family of soft shelled turtles.
Eocene fossil trackways are found in the Chuckanut Formation, composed of both birds and animals, including mammals and some turtle tracks. It is thought that the Chuckanut Formation shoreline was of riverine environments combined with a large scale "bedding plane" of material deposition. Four deposition or track sites are known.
Read more about this topic: Chuckanut Formation
Famous quotes containing the word fossils:
“You can hardly convince a man of an error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In early times, before the floods swept across the world, there was life, albeit odd, as one can see from the fossils of mammoth bones, and there was the regime of Prince Metternich.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)