2024 IN REVIEW
Psalm 104
New International Version
24 How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number - living things both large and small.

​We had a busy year in 2024 with 3 fossil trips and an open house. The previous open house was in 2017! Enjoy this edition of our annual newsletter and check out the new location for this year's summer public fossil trip!
Photo: Fall field trip to the Niagara Gorge
MUSEUM EVENTS
Photo: Indoor fossil hunt
​It's open house time again at the “Creation Research Museum of Ontario” in Goodwood, Ontario on
Saturday, June the 21st, 2025 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

​Day activities include... 
-Fossil hunting. Learn about different types of fossils and the evidence for a quick burial. 
-The “Rock Pile Dig” where you can collect a bucket of fossils and minerals to take home.
The beauty in minerals and crystals has always defied the theory of evolution.
-Tour the museum for free! Participate in the self tour quiz and get a chance to win
​a fabulous local fossil in the draw. 
-Creation resources, t-shirts, fossils and minerals available for purchase at the rock store.
-Free gift bag with creation materials, while they last.
-Visit the hands-on activity tables. ​
For more info click button below.
Come on a Spring, Summer, or Fall 2025 public ​fossil trip with ​Martin
​Legemaate, Curator of The ​Creation Research Museum of Ontario
Photo: Kawartha Lakes fossil dig
Spring Kawartha Lakes trip: Saturday, June 14th 2025. Fall Kawartha Lakes trip: Saturday, September 13th 2025
Contact Curator Martin Legemaate: [email protected] 
Dates and times may change due to quarry operations.
Photo: Hungry Hollow fossil trip
Summer trip, July 19th, 2025 Arkona/Hungry Hollow fossil trip.
Contact Curator Martin Legemaate: [email protected] ​
2024 IN REVIEW
MAY
MUSEUM OPEN HOUSE
Kids going around the museum with fill-in sheets to find answers to a fossil quiz. At the end of the day a sheet was drawn from a bucket and if the answers were correct they won a fabulous local fossil!
Pausing for a photo with museum supporters.
The highlight is the fossil hunt. Visitors split open oil shale and look for the primary fossil, trilobite bits.
This lad found lots of interesting fossils.
A trilobite tail belonging to the trilobite, Pseudogygites latimarginatus. 
Even little ones have a great time spotting fossils.
Here's another trilobite tail.
​With the rain starting, we moved the fossil hunt indoors.
Kids love the hands on fossil identification displays.
Back at it, searching for fossils.
An uncommon fossil was found here.
Along with 2 trilobite tails, we have 2 perplexing fossils called Conulariids. Experts are divided. Some classify them in with the Cnidaria which include jelly fish and coral, yet others are not sure where to classify them. Still lots of riddles to be solved for paleontologists and fossil hunters alike! 
Having a visitor pick out the winner to the fossil quiz. Congratulations to Laura Kolozsi!
JUNE
Spring Kawartha Lakes fossil trip
Opening introduction at Pioneer Baptist Church in Norland.
Arrival at site 1, a working quarry.
This quarry cuts through the Middle Ordovician, Gull River Formation. Vertebrates such as ostracoderms (armoured jawless fish) are found in this formation, which perplexes evolutionists as this is very early in the rocks to be finding vertebrates. There is no perplexity at all if you believe a flood covered invertebrates and vertebrates together, such as the great flood in Noah's day. 
(​https://www.researchgate.net/publication/30849230_Ordovician_Vertebrates_from_Ontario)


Training the eye to find fossils.
A pause for show and tell time.
Joey pointing to a fossil on a large slab.
Crinoid stems pointing in generally the same direction, indicating a flow of water washed them in.
A nice, extinct, orthocone found with visible chambers. Orthocones are similar to the modern day coiled nautilus, but they have a straight cone. Extinction is no help to the theory of evolution. If evolution were true we should be gaining species, not losing them!
After a lot of searching, Dave finally came up with a good find.
A negative and positive impression of an almost complete Bathyurus trilobite!
A fossil hot spot!
Another nice find ...
… a partial trilobite!
On to site 2. Digging in the Verulam Formation, a few formations above the Gull River Formation.
Laura hoping to get a good specimen.
Here you can find some fascinating micro fossils. There are bits of crinoids, trilobites, brachiopods and bryozoans, all in the space of a fingernail.
In between the rock layers are clay deposits in which fossils can fall out of. Arron found some really nice crinoid stem pieces.
Close-up of the crinoid stems.
The final conclusion. As usual, some fossil creatures found were extinct (as in the trilobite). If evolution were true we should be gaining species, not losing them. Other fossil creatures found still have a living counterpart (as in the crinoid). Crinoids turned into crinoids. No evolution here!
JUNE
On the hunt for ammonites in Schaffhausen, Switzerland
On a path that leads to a field outcrop not far away.
At the Jurassic rock outcrop. The name Jurassic, comes from  the "JURA" mountain range that runs between Switzerland and France. The name has nothing to do with millions and millions of years!
Rouven cracking open a rock to see what he can find.
Oyster shells are found in abundance here.
Close-up of an oyster shell called (Gryphaea).
Not a bad ammonite to start with.
Elisheva showing off one of her great finds.
Not as abundant as oyster shells, other types of (Bivalve) shells are also found here.
Pointing to the best find of the day ...
… here it is after we took it home and gave it a rinse. A large ammonite with a smaller one, top right.
Not a bad haul for a fun day. A nice bunch of oyster shells (left) and belemnites (right).
SEPTEMBER
Fall Kawartha Lakes fossil trip
At site one we begin with a safety talk as there are some hazards on both sites.
I've directed them to hammer on the dark blue rock as that is the trilobite bearing seam.
A natural table to hammer on rocks!
Hannah found the first good find!
A trilobite (Bathyurus) tail (pygidium).
Diligence pays off!
Another nice find by Mara.
A partial cephalopod.
Great weather for discovery.
We have a few show and tell times throughout the dig. Folks find better fossils every time as their skill increases. 
A possible complete trilobite with the head buried?
Close up.
On to site 2.
The fossil ID board helps with fossil identification.
This site requires a different type of collecting. Rather than hammering the rocks, most of the fossils lie on the loose slabs or are in soft clay between the limestone layers.
 As in the ridge, there are lots of fossils on the limestone floor.
Freedom found something neat ...
… crinoid discs belonging to the stem part. Crinoids are called living fossils because they are still here in our oceans today. No evolution here!
Checking out some specimens!
Camus found something cool ...
… a slab with crinoid stems, several brachiopod shells and bryozoans!
And this is a first for us, Camus also found ...
… the missing link!
SEPTEMBER
Niagara Gorge field trip with students from King Alfred Academy in Waterloo, Ontario.
Pausing for a group photo down at the whirlpool with Thompsons Point, USA in the background.
Looking down at the Niagara Gorge from above, with the whirlpool in the distance.
Opening introduction. When lawyer/geologist Charles Lyell visited the gorge in the 1800s, he proposed that the gorge took 35,000 years to form. Much later a revised date set the gorge at 12,000 years old. Lets find out what they are saying today.
Heading down to the bottom of the gorge with the Lockport Limestone on the right.
Making a brief stop at a giant boulder filled with jelly fish or sponge fossils scattered through it.
Getting the students to look for potholes because quite frankly, they're quite hard to locate amongst the boulders. 
James sitting in the first pothole discovered. 
Katie is sitting in a partial pothole next to the complete one.
What is a pothole? A pothole is formed quickly when turbulent water carries sand, gravel and even boulders, and grinds a hole into and through rock. In this case limestone. Because of these features and others, it is now estimated that sections of the gorge took only weeks or even days to form! To state a bad pun, the argument of slow and gradual processes in geology just doesn't hold water any more! 
​
Laura and I were fortunate to have Richard Fangrad from CMI (Creation Ministries International) with us on the trip. He did a great job at summing up the observations on the trip.
We had our lunch back at the top, only to go back down again. This time it was at the whirlpool's edge. You have to be really fit for this trip. Lots of fossils here for the kids to discover.
On to the quiz part of the trip. Here the students were learning about rock formation names. A rock formation is a layer of rock that is distinguishable from the overlying and underlying layers. With the help of a sketch they were to fill in the blanks on a photo of Thompsons Point, using a list of formation names, and write them down in the right order.
Giving out the answers to the quiz. Most students got the formations in the right order!
Spotting something in the rock. Is it a fossil?
The kids mostly found bryozoan fossils but this piece contains some nice crinoid discs.
Busy trying to find that perfect specimen before heading back up.
Here's a nice piece containing dolomite crystals.
Summing up time. The students learned how the slow and gradual processes that Charles Lyell promoted, influenced the geological world and that the rocks actually show to opposite, that is, evidence of a catastrophic past. They also learned that most of the fossil creatures found are still living today (as in brachiopods) and the rest, are extinct (as in the trilobite). Transitional forms (one creature evolving into another) are only in text books and not in the rocks!
NOVEMBER
COLLINGWOOD MEMBER (WHITBY) OIL SHALE RESEARCH
CRAIGLEITH
One of my favorite rock formations (layers) is the Collingwood Member, consisting of oil shale. I was in the area so I took a little drive up to Craigleith to poke around. The oil shales are exposed primarily on the shore of Georgian Bay. 
 If you have a trained eye and spend enough time here, you will probably come across a complete trilobite as I did this time around. This is a Pseudogygites latimarginatus trilobite as found and unprepped.
COURTICE
I'm always looking for new places to collect in the Collingwood Member shale and Lake Ontario at the bottom of Courtice Road east of Oshawa, is a newly discovered place for me.
Although the Collingwood Member lies just beneath the glacial till, there is enough till boulders (that have been scraped off the Collingwood Member during the Ice Age) to collect the fossils from. Here is a nice slab of cone shaped cephalopods. 
Close up of a cephalopod to the right of the dime.
And on top the the dime is a trilobite glabella, or nose piece, from the trilobite Triarthrus.
Oil shale is not only great to collect fossils in, but it is great evidence that organic matter (plants and animals) were deposited quickly and covered up quickly by more sediments, then preserved as oil. If they were covered up slowly there would be no oil present, as the organic matter would have long rotted away.