![Geological Survey of Canada Geological Survey of Canada](/web/20061103065427im_/http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/esst_images/gsc_e.jpeg) Natural Resources Canada > Earth Sciences Sector > Geological Survey of Canada > Past lives: Chronicles of Canadian Paleontology
Past lives: Chronicles of Canadian Paleontology Introduction
by Rolf Ludvigsen and Brian Chatterton
Table of Contents
![Past lives](/web/20061103065427im_/http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/paleochron/images/pastlives_e.jpg)
In a 1938 speech to the House of Commons, Prime Minister William Lyon
Mackenzie King commented that, "if some countries have too much
history, we have too much geography". The notion that Canada
possesses a surfeit of territory but skimpy and rather leaden history is
occasionally echoed by glib commentators who, like Mackenzie King,
understand little about the real scope of history. Canada's historical
clock did not start with the landfall of the French, English, Basque or
Portuguese five centuries ago, nor with the Norse visitors ten centuries
ago, not even when the first hunter gatherers entered the Americas some
200 centuries before that. According to evidence from the tortured rocks
of the Canadian Shield, it started ticking billions of years ago. Flanking
the Shield are layers of sedimentary rocks that enclose rich and varied
fossils. These fossils allow paleontologists to assemble historical
narratives of physical and biological events in different Canadian
geological regions over the past half billion years. Far from being
abbreviated or diminished, if earth history and life history are factored
in (as they must), Canada's history emerges as richly textured and
unimaginably vast -- and anything but dull!
These accounts, stories and anecdotes about the people who collected or
studied specific Canadian fossils are shortened from a book manuscript
that will soon be submitted for publication under the title "Past
lives: Chronicles of Canadian paleontology".
If you have any questions or comments concerning the content of this Web site,
please contact the authors (Rolf Ludvigsen and Brian Chatterton).
|