Update - Worlds Largest Ammonite [maybe...?]

After finishing up with the Trackway project at Line Creek, we headed back to Fernie.  We stopped in town for lunch and then decided to pick up some bear spray.  We had been warned that the bears were heading back down to the lower elevations and were hungry before looking to den up for winter.  In fact when we were having dinner at the pub in the Fernie Hotel on Monday night we found out just how much of an issue the bears can be.  Our waitress left the pub when her shift was over around 9:00PM.  About 10 minutes later she was back.  She said that she had tried to go home, but there was a bear on the front porch of her house, and she couldn't get in.  So she came back to work, hoping she could get in later.

We were planning to hike up to the Fernie Ammonite, so we decided to take no chances.  It turned out later that we didn't see any bears, or any sign, but better safe than sorry.

The Fernie Ammonite has been known for decades.  It is partially a cast and partially an impression of what might be the world's largest ammonite.  Under scientific rules it does not count as the largest specimen, or a new species unless it is collected and housed at a museum, university, or some such similar institution.  We had previously made a proposal to cut this sample out of the rock face that it is preserved in, and move it to a museum.  This met with mixed reviews.  Some were interested in having it recognized, but others wanted it to stay where it was so that people could hike to it and see it first hand, in its final resting place.  As no one was willing to come forward with the funding to pay for it's extraction, we dropped the idea.  But now, since we were right in the area, we decided to take a mold off of the specimen.  This would allow us to make casts of the fossil, for display by anyone interested.  Although this would not count in terms of the world record, or as confirmation of a possible new species, it would at least provide a record of the specimen.  The fossil was slowly deteriorating, and people had been stealing chunks of it.  There were concerns that it was not going to be around all that much longer.  A mold had been made years previously, and we are told that the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller actually possesses a cast from that mold.  But, the cast is not on display, and it seems that the mold is no longer in existence.  Surprisingly we found traces of latex or silicone in the cracks of the fossil, residue from the previously taken mold, years prior.  This current project was undertaken by our company entirely on spec, with the hope that someone might be interested in purchasing a cast of it.  As this process does no harm to the fossil, and as it is situated on crown land, we went ahead with our plan.  

We drove up the Coal Creek Road just outside of Fernie.  At the right spot we crossed Coal Creek and hiked about a mile up one of the small tributaries.  This was a rather strenuous hike through fairly rough terrain, with significant elevation gain.  It was a good thing that it is fall and the water levels in the creek and the tributary were very low.

It was quite warm on this afternoon and we quickly realized how steep the terrain really was.  There was no way that we could have brought our compressor up to this site and used the spray-on silicone material that we had used at the trackway site.  Instead we brought up pails of a two component silicone material that we would mix and hand apply to the fossil.  Even though the two five gallon pails were not full, they were heavy enough and we struggled to get them up to the site.  But, it was all worthwhile when we went around the corner of an outcropping rock and caught our first glimpse of the impressive fossil.

By this point it was already mid-afternoon, so we set to work.  We started out by cleaning all of the dirt, debris and moss off of the fossil.  Once that task was completed, we stood back and marvelled at how impressive this specimen really was.

We had brought up mixing bowls, rubber gloves, spatulas, brushes and other related supplies.  We mixed up the two component silicone in small batches and started applying it to the fossil.  We must have mixed up at least a dozen bowls of the stuff and kept going until we ran out of material.  We were careful to work the rubber material into all the nooks and crannies so that it would yield the best possible mold.  By the time we finished, it was late afternoon and approaching early evening.  We cleaned up the site, packed up all our gear and headed back down to our vehicles.  We would have to leave this silicone material to cure until the next day, when the mold could be peeled.  The next morning I needed to leave and make my way back home to my real job... the one that pays the bills...  But I was really appreciative of the opportunity to experience this and be a part of the team.  Frank and Jim would hang around long enough to peel the mold and pack it back down the tributary and bring it back to the shop in Drumheller.