The first Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, Sir William Logan, studied the fossiliferous rock formations and Joggins coal deposits in Nova Scotia as part of a geological tour in 1841 (Logan made the first North American discovery of terrestrial animal tracks), and returned to Joggins as part of his first GSC field study in 1843, the summer following the formation of the GSC. Before this work, Logan had formed a hypothesis in 1840 that would make him a pioneer of geology. His careful mapping and stratigraphic studies of Welsh coal seams showed that coal developed in place from swamps.

While Logan was exploring eastern Canada, Alexander Murray studied the geology of the west (southern Ontario). The trilobite-bearing black shales Murray studied extend from Whitby to Collingwood and eastward to the Ottawa area, where they are called the Billings Formation. Between 1859-63 these shales at Craigleith were part of an unsuccessful attempt to distill oil from rock. The inefficiency of the process and competition from oil wells in Oil Springs and Petrolia eventually doomed the project.

An increase in annual funding in 1856 allowed Logan to add to the size and operations of the GSC, and one of his priorities was to hire a paleontologist. This move would lessen his reliance on paleontologists such as James Hall of New York to identify fossils collected by Survey staff. Elkanah Billings was the logical choice as the Survey's first paleontologist because he had already published two scientific papers on fossils of the Ottawa area (1854), accompanied GSC geologist James Richardson to Levis, Quebec and Lambton County, Ontario (1854-55), and in early 1856, founded the Canadian Naturalist and Geologist.

In his twenty years as GSC paleontologist, Billings discovered over 60 new genera and over 1000 new species of fossils. He is best known for his work on echinoderms, but also contributed to stratigraphic studies by other GSC staff. Thomas C. Weston was lapidarist, field assistant to Logan and Billings, fossil preparator, museum assistant, photographer, and the first GSC librarian. In later years, he collected fossils around Quebec City, on Anticosti Island, on Newfoundland, at Joggins and Arisaig, Nova Scotia, and in western Canada.

The early Survey staff and their colleagues in academia joined the debate on the antiquity of life through two discoveries: in 1851, Cambrian tracks and foot-prints, and about 1858, Precambrian life (Charles Darwin published the first edition of Origin of Species in November 1859). The first discovery, called Protichnites, was from Beauharnois, Quebec and provided evidence that animals had evolved more rapidly and much earlier than previously thought. Different tracks of the same age were found soon after near Perth, Ontario. Logan named these Climactichnites wilsoni, in honour of the discoverer, Dr. James Wilson.

The discovery by James Wilson of what purportedly was evidence for the oldest life on earth proved to be more controversial. First found near Perth sometime before 1858, samples of a banded "concretionary" serpentine and crystalline calcite rock were sent to Logan as mineral specimens. Similar rocks, but with bands of crystalline pyroxene and calcite, were found near Grand Calumet, Quebec in 1858. These were exhibited by Logan as "supposed" Precambrian fossils. Additional examples were later collected at Cote St. Pierre near Grenville, Quebec in 1863 and near Millbridge, Ontario in 1866. Logan recognized that organic remains in these rocks would have been destroyed by crystallization, and that it would only be through mineral replacement that the original organic form would be retained. Key to the interpretation of the organic origin of these samples was the banding. Comparisons were made to samples of the much younger stromatoporoid "Stromatopora rugosa", which had its calcite "bands" replaced by silica.

The Survey still has samples of both the Cote St. Pierre rock and "Stromatopora rugosa" collected by Weston, who had some interest in the debate. The Survey's paleontologist, Billings, however, avoided the approaching controversy by referring the specimens to Sir J.W. Dawson, Principal of McGill University. Dawson named it Eozoon canadense, meaning "dawn animal from Canada", and called it "one of the brightest gems in the scientific crown of the Geological Survey of Canada". The controversy raged on in scientific literature for years, being argued between Dawson and his colleagues, and mineralogists. As Hans Hofmann noted in 1971 (GSC Bulletin 189), the importance of the field relationship of Eozoon canadense was completely ignored until 1895 when it was shown that the Cote St. Pierre occurrence was associated with metamorphism. Although these banded rocks are not organic, they do look like the banded stromatolites now known from the Precambrian of the Canadian Shield.

With the death of Billings in 1876, Joseph F. Whiteaves became a full time member of the Survey. He continued with the publication series on fossils started by Billings, and in 1885 started a series of publications called Contributions to Canadian Paleontology that described and illustrated guide fossils for rock units. This series continues to this day, the most recent being published in 1991. A number of the exquisite lithographic plates of fossils in the early volumes were by L.M. Lambe.

Lawrence M. Lambe studied Devonian fishes from New Brunswick and Paleozoic corals, collected Tertiary insects and plants in British Columbia, but is best known for his work on vertebrates from western Canada, in particular, the dinosaurs. Joseph B. Tyrrell, who joined the GSC as assistant paleontologist, found western Canada's dinosaur beds in the Red Deer River valley in 1884 (the word "dinosaur" was coined only 43 years previous). Tyrrell discovered the first skull of Albertosaurus near what today is the site of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta.

A family of four Sternbergs also played an important role for the Survey and Canada during the dinosaur rush in the early 1900's. To counter the export of dinosaur bones from western Canada to the United States, Charles H. Sternberg and his three sons began field work in 1912. The great discovery of that year was a complete duck-billed dinosaur, Edmontosaurus. One of his sons, Charles M. Sternberg, continued with the GSC, and from 1948 with its offspring, the Canadian Museum of Nature, until 1957.

From the low point of only one Survey paleontologist (Lambe) in 1910, the GSC under a new Director, Reginald W. Brock, entered a new era with a increase in staff to fourteen paleontologists, plus assistants, by 1914. Three of these new members made lasting contributions to invertebrate paleontology and paleobotany. The first female geologist hired by the GSC was Alice E. Wilson who made detailed studies of the fossils and rocks of the Ottawa region. Wilson joined the Survey as a museum assistant, performing mainly clerical duties, but by 1913 had begun her career in paleontology with a paper in the first of the Museum bulletins. She went on to become one of Canada's leading woman scientists in an era that did not look all that kindly on women in the professions.

In 1911, Walter A. Bell began his work with the Geological Survey by examining the Carboniferous plants of Joggins, which had caught Logan's attention in the early years of the GSC. In his 1949 publication on fossil plants from Alberta, Bell supplemented his own collections with those collected at the turn of the century by Survey notables such as George M. Dawson, Alfred R.C. Selwyn, Weston, Tyrrell, and the Sternbergs. Bell continued to be a productive research scientist over his long career. In the final seven years before his death in 1967, Bell's publications included 220 illustrated plates of fossil plants from across Canada.

Another of the long-serving paleontologists, Frank H. McLearn, best known as an expert on Jurassic-Cretaceous molluscs, began his first major work in 1914 with the collection of Silurian fossils from Arisaig, Nova Scotia. First mentioned in Gesner's 1836 report, the Arisaig rock sequence is the key section in Nova Scotia for the Silurian Period. McLearn's Memoir (1924) was the first comprehensive study of the Arisaig fossils. McLearn not only collected extensively through these beds, but he also made use of the Arisaig collections of Hall, Billings, Dawson, Weston, and others. McLearn joined Survey staff members in 1914 in the search for oil and gas (and coal, water) in western Canada. The results of their studies in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta were published in a series of annual summary reports, and finally as a GSC Memoir in 1919. McLearn also studied coal-bearing Mesozoic rocks of northern Ontario in 1926, the same year Bell was exploring for hydrocarbons on Cape Breton Island.

Today, paleontologists are based in all but one of the six offices of the GSC. Like many of their predecessors, most GSC paleontologists of today are specialists who have an active field program. Their own collections are supplemented by those made by others and thus, they continue to serve Survey geologists the same way Billings and his successors did by identifying and interpreting fossils collected by field geologists. This service role has expanded to provide age-determination services to geologists in industry, academia, and other government research institutions, and to members of the general public. As in Logan's time, specialists at universities and other research institutions are often called on for assistance with fossil identifications.

Paleontologists use data derived from fossils to develop and modify the Geologic Time Scale used in intercontinental correlation. This scale is the "geological clock" or calendar of geological events, and is continually modified to improve its precision. They also use fossils to understand ancient depositional environments and the ecology of fossil organisms. Paleontological studies are inseparable from stratigraphic research and are essential to the understanding and correlation of surface and subsurface sedimentary rocks. Some fossils undergo colour and other physical changes when exposed to increased temperature and these are used to determine the thermal histories of sedimentary basins and in studies of hydrocarbon and lead-zinc deposits. Studies on the geochemistry of fossils and rock provide insight into the changing physical and chemical characteristics of sedimentary environments through time. Of particular interest today is the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary and the dinosaur extinction, but lesser known biologic crises from the more distant past are also been investigated.

Research results by Survey paleontologists are presented in GSC publications and other scientific journals. The fossils from these studies comprise a very large, valuable and accessible resource. They are systematically documented, sorted and preserved in the fossil collections for future research, for general reference, for teaching, and for display. In a sense these collections are the archives of the GSC, which began with Logan's fossil collections made on his first field season as a GSC geologist.

Visitors to the fossiliferous limestone outcrop of the Ottawa Formation at the Booth Street headquarters can immediately see that the Geological Survey of Canada is based on fossils. This "fossil support" is not just structural after 150 years, the fundamental role of paleontologists in the Geological Survey of Canada, to provide age determinations, has changed little. But a distinct advantage for today's GSC paleontologist is the published interpretations and descriptions of fossils, and the fossils themselves, that Billings and the others had left. By building on the past, and using new technology, paleontologists can now extract more information from ancient biotas Canada is a huge country and important new fossil discoveries are made every year.

	Sir William Logan (shown in his workroom), first Director of the Geological Survey of Canada. His careful mapping and stratigraphic studies of Welsh coal seams showed that coal developed in place from swamps, in his words, "in the Stigmaria Ficoides we have the plant to which the earth is mainly indebted for those vast stores of fossil fuel which are now so indispensable to the comfort and prosperity of its inhabitants" (GSC 77280-A).
	Alexander Murray began his GSC service with Logan in 1842, and explored much of Ontario. His conclusion that coal-bearing rock formations of the type found in eastern United States were not present in Canada saved needless public and private expenditures in looking for something that geologically was not possible (GSC-81367).
	The trilobite Pseudogygites latimarginatus (GSC Type Fossil No. 1934c) found by Alexander Murray at Collingwood in 1848. Fossils were used by Murray in 1845 to show that black oil shales of Collingwood were the same age as similar rocks in the Whitby area and New York State (GSC 1993-132c).
	Elkanah Billings, a lawyer and editor of the Ottawa Citizen who had an interest in natural history, became the first paleontologist of the GSC. In his twenty years as Survey paleontologist, Billings erected over 60 new genera and over 1000 new species of fossils (GSC 69323).
	The Billings Medal is the biennial award presented by the Paleontology Division of the Geological Association of Canada for outstanding achievement in the study of paleontology (GSC 1992-054A left, GSC 1992-054B right).
	James Richardson, was a geologist with the GSC from 1846-83. One of the first, if not first use of photography in the Survey's field studies was on his expedition to the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1860. Paleontologist Elkanah Billings accompanied Richardson to Levis, Quebec and Lambton County, Ontario in 1854-55 (GSC 200121).
	Thomas C. Weston, lapidarist, field assistant, fossil preparator, museum assistant, photographer, and the first GSC librarian. In later years, he collected extensively for fossils across Canada (GSC 81450A).
	Cambrian age tracks, Protichnites species from Beauharnois, Quebec, as illustrated in the Geology of Canada by Sir William Logan (1863). This fossil provided evidence that animals had evolved more rapidly and much earlier than thought at the time of discovery (GSC 202429).
	Climactichnites wilsoni tracks from Perth, as illustrated in the Geology of Canada by Sir William Logan (1863). At one time this huge specimen was mounted on the wall of the GSC's museum. The specimen (in pieces) is still in the GSC's fossil collections (GSC 202430).
	"Photo opportunity" at Eozoon canadense locality, Cote St. Pierre near Grenville, Quebec (ca. 1894). At the left are R.W. Ells, A.R.C. Selwyn (GSC Director, 1869-95), F.D. Adams (petrographer, proposed by some as Director in 1901). Seated on the side of the rock is J.B. Tyrrell. Standing in front, Hugh Fletcher. At the top of the rock are E.D. Ingall (Chief, Min. Statistics Division), R.G. McConnell (Deputy Minister, 1914-20), R.W. Brock (Director, 1907-14, Deputy Minister, 1914-20), William McInnes (Director, 1914-20, Museum Director, 1920-25) (GSC 105979).
	The stromatoporoid "Stromatopora rugosa" collected by T.C. Weston in 1882 from the Ottawa Formation at Paquette Rapids on the Ottawa River in Ontario. The similarities in banding of the (inorganic) Eozoon canadense and this type of fossil supported the organic origin for Eozoon (GSC 1992-234B).
	Sir J. William Dawson, Principal of McGill University. He and Sir Charles Lyell discovered the now world famous Carboniferous reptile fossils of Joggins, Nova Scotia in 1851. Dawson later played a major role in the Eozoon canadense controversy (GSC 202378).
	Eozoon canadense ("dawn animal from Canada"), named by Sir J. William Dawson. This supposed fossil from the Precambrian Laurentian limestone was collected at Cote St. Pierre near Grenville, Quebec by T.C. Weston (GSC 1992-234c).
	Joseph F. Whiteaves collected and studied fossils from across Canada, and specialized in Mesozoic paleontology. He became Acting Deputy Minister in 1907 (GSC 200096).
	Lawrence Lambe studied a variety of fossils (Devonian fishes, Paleozoic corals, Tertiary insects and plants) but is best known for his work on dinosaurs from western Canada. Lambe worked on the specimens submitted by field collectors such as Charles H. Sternberg and sons (GSC 109384).
	Joseph B. Tyrrell, who joined the GSC in 1881 as assistant paleontologist, found western Canada's dinosaur beds in the Red Deer River valley in 1884. Although the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta is named in his honour, he is as well known as a reconnaissance mapper of huge areas of western and northwestern Canada (GSC 109758).
	Charles M. Sternberg, one of a family of four who collected dinosaurs (and other types of fossils) for the GSC. The other family members were father Charles H., and brothers Levi and George (CMN J-19830).
	Alice E. Wilson, first woman geologist and paleontologist of the GSC, first woman with Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada, and Member of the Order of the British Empire (GSC 112040).
	Walter A. Bell studied plant macrofossils from the Carboniferous, Cretaceous, and Tertiary. His stratigraphic and paleontological studies on the coal-bearing beds of eastern Canada continue to be used. Bell was GSC Director from 1950-53 (GSC 201114).
	Frank H. McLearn began his first major GSC work in 1914 with the Silurian fossils from Arisaig, Nova Scotia, but is best known as an expert on Jurassic-Cretaceous molluscs. He joined other staff members in the same year to search for oil, gas, coal and water in western Canada. In 1916, he examined oil sands of the Athabaska region (GSC 112055).
	Geological Time Scale (GSC ADM1999-7).
	"Logan's Trilobite", "Dalmanites pleuropteryx". GSC National Type Collection of Invertebrate and Plant Fossils Type Number 150,000 (in recognition of the 150 years since Logan formed the Geological Survey of Canada) (GSC ADM1999-1).
	Sir William E. Logan studied the rocks and fossils between Pictou, Nova Scotia and Gaspe, Quebec during the GSC's first field season in 1843. One of the trilobite fossils found by Logan near Perce was illustrated in perfect detail in his field notebook. Above the illustrations are the words "Fossils from the Split Rock north end", in reference to Perce Rock, an impressive outcrop of Devonian age (GSC1992-053).