[ACKNOWLEGMENT: A "Thank you" to the Sydney Mines Community Heritage Society for emailing some of these pics; others may be found at their websites, as herein noted – JGB, 24Mar06.]
In this folder is a small selection of pictures of plant fossils in the collection of the museum, and as well as information about the museum of the:
SYDNEY MINES COMMUNITY HERITAGE SOCIETY
The Society's website is: http://www.sydneyminesheritage.org
The Heritage Society is a nonprofit organisation registered with Revenue Canada, and the the Heritage Museum (formerly the Sydney Mines train station) will be celebrating it's 100th anniversary on July 1 2005.
The Heritage Museum tells the history of the Town of Sydney Mines, steel mining and 200 years of coal mining. The Society's heritage museum is in the former railway station on Legatto Street (Pond Street) and opened its doors there on August 28, 1999
The society also constructed a dedicated 'Fossil Museum' which displays fossils from the local area going back 300 million years ago. The effort to develop this museum is dedicated to preserving the rich fossil history of Cape Breton. The society now holds over 4000 catalogued fossil specimens.
The society first opened its fossil center on July 1, 2001. Thereafter it began an expansion with a new building. This new building opened in 2004 and is named the Cape Breton Fossil Centre. It opened to the public on July 1, 2004. Its curator, Dr. Stuart Critchley, conducts research programs and day camps for those interested in fossils. The fossil centre is located next to the historic Sydney Mines Railroad Station which is now the heritage musuem.
Cape Breton Fossil Centre and the curator (Dr. Critchley) helping visitors identify specimens during an identification day at the centre
The fossil center has a separate website, at http://www.cbfossil.org/index.vm
Many fossils have been found in the shale and sandstone overlying the coal seams. In some cases, the trunks of extinct trees have been found standing upright above the coal. This fossil flora of the Cape Breton coalfields is of Carboniferous age (250-350 My ago).
Displays within the Centre
The Centre's reception area
The MacDonald Elementary Class on a field trip at Little Pond
Dr. Stuart Critchley
Dr. Crichley's day camps are conducted one per week in the months of July and August and include indentification days. Dr. Crichley in association with the Center's research project is also available to assist tourists in the museum, as well as participate in various other tours to the fossil fields.
Dr. Critchley's field excursions along the fossil rich coastline of the Sydney Coalfield are held in the Canadian summer months of July and August because this is when when weather and tidal conditions are optimal.
THE FOSSIL FLORA
As the Fossil Centre describes it, the local Carboniferous flora features:
Lepidodenrons - These were very large trees that grew in the Carboniferous swamp forests. Fossils of Lepidodendrons have shown that some trees had a trunk height of 114 feet with a crown of branches extending up to another twenty feet. Based on some of the evidence found in fossils, living Lepidodendrons must have grown to a height of up to 135 feet or more. Lepidodendron trees had trunks 4 feet in diameter and branches did not begin to grow until near the top. Leaves of the Lepidodendron tree were pointed and set in a close spiral. The branches bore cones at their tips and some cones have been recorded as large as twenty inches long and two inches in diameter. The roots of the Lepidodendron tree did not look like true roots. (Stigmariae - as the roots are called - were very massive with many large branches).
Calamites - These were tall, jointed, reed-like plants, closely related to modern horsetails. The plants grew fifteen to twenty feet high, but some giant forms reached heights of forty feet. Calamites were tall, slender, tapering plants in appearance. The main trunk was made up of jointed cylinders with a circle of branches at each end of the cylinder. The smaller branched bore leaves that were also arranged in a circle. Calamites were cone bearing plants and some of the cones were a foot long and an inch or more in diameter. Calamites were the most common plant in the Carboniferous forests. The forests during the Carboniferous were swampy and much like dense jungles.
Sigillaria - Another widely distributed tree during the Carboniferous and it was generally found with Lepidodendron trees. Growing to one hundred feet or more, the Sigillaria tree had sword shaped leaves. The leaves were nearly three feet long and concentrated in a cluster at the top of the tree. The cones of the Sigillaria were arranged in clusters around the tree trunk just below the crown of leaves. The root system of the Sigillaria was very similar to that of the Lepidodendron.
Cordaites - These were also widely distributed during the Carboniferous. The tall, slender tree grew to a height of a hundred feet or more. The trunk of the tree was about two feet in diameter. Branches were restricted to the upper part of the tree trunk and each branch had a lush crown of leaves. The leaves of Cordaites were straped shaped, somtimes pointed, and grew to nearly three feet long and fifteen inches long.
Tree ferns - These were very significant among the carboniferous plants. Tree ferns grew to a height of seventy feet with trunks two feet in diameter. Large, spreading, compound leaves were concentrated at the top of the trees.
""""""
CONTACT INFORMATION
The Sydney Mines Community Heritage Society
159 Legatto Street, Sydney Mines, NS B1V 5S6PO Box 112, Sydney Mines, NS B1V 2Y4
Telephone: (902) 544-0992
Fax (902) 544-0870
E-mail: smheritage@ns.aliantzinc.ca
Jim Tobin, Chairperson
48 Pond Road, Sydney Mines, NS B1V 2X4
Telephone: (902) 736-8862
SOME PAGES CACHED (March 2006):
Sydney-Mines-Heritage-Society.mht (http://www.sydneyminesheritage.org/index.vm)
Cape-Breton-Fossil-Centre.mht (http://www.cbfossil.org/index.vm)
Cape-Breton-Fossil-Centre-images.mht (http://www.cbfossil.org/gallery/images?g=2)
SOME FOSSIL PLANTS OF THE SYDNEY MINES AREA
Typical appearance of Calamites, jointed and bamboo-like
Basal part of a rather large, tree-sized, Calamites plant
Coalified bark on Lepidodendron (most of the tree had internally rotted and had been replaced by sediment infilling)
Typical "tyre-tread" appearance of the suface of a Ledpidodendron tree trunk.
Small branch of a Lepidodendron tree
Sigillaria tree pieces
Unidentified tree trunk surface with some resemblance to tree ferns or Sigillaria
Fossilised trunk of a large tree, on display in the Museum
Fossilised fern foliage