Newly Discovered Labrador Fossils Give Clues About Ancient Climate

The discovery of fossilized plants in Labrador, Canada, by a team of McGill directed paleontologists provides the first quantitative estimate of the area’s climate during the Cretaceous period, a time when the earth was dominated by dinosaurs. The specimens were found in the Redmond no.1 mine, in a remote area of Labrador near Schefferville, in August 2018. Together with specimens collected in previous expeditions, they are now at the core of a recent study published in Palaeontology.

Some of the specimens, such as this fossilized tree leaf (see photo), are the first of their kind to have been found in the area. Alexandre Demers-Potvin, a graduate student under the supervision of Professor Hans Larsson, Canada Research Chair in Vertebrate Palaeontology at McGill University, used the samples he collected to establish that Eastern Canada would have had a warm temperate and fully humid climate during the middle of Cretaceous period.

Fossilized leaves and insects, known to be very similar to communities that today live further south, had been found at the Redmond No. 1 mine in the late 1950s had led paleontologists to hypothesize that the cretaceous climate of Quebec and Labrador was far warmer than it is today.

Read more at: McGill University

This fossilized tree leaf, are the first of their kind to have been found in the area. Alexandre Demers-Potvin, used the samples he collected to establish that Eastern Canada would have had a warm temperate and fully humid climate during the middle of Cretaceous period. (Photo Credit: Alexandre Demers-Potvin)