Sutherland Pit (Pleistocene of Canada)

Also known as Duh

Where: Saskatchewan, Canada (52.2° N, 106.6° W: paleocoordinates 52.2° N, 106.6° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Floral Formation, Late/Upper Pleistocene (0.1 - 0.0 Ma)

• from throughout a section about 12 feet thick

•thought to be of "late Pleistocene age, dating from the time of withdrawal of the Wisconsin ice" based on superposition above a till

•the hardpan is believed by SkwaraWoolf (1981) to possibly represent the Floral Formation, but the overlying sequence (called by her a "gravel") that yielded most of the fossils does not

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fluvial; coarse-grained, conglomeratic sandstone

• thought to have been deposited "in or near the lake that formed in this area while the ice lay not very far to the northeast" but lithology is only consistent with a fluvial environment
• "Coarse angular sand with pebbles and boulders; imperfectly stratified; bones and teeth at base" above and sometimes within a "basal layer of sand, about 0.5 inch in thickness, that has been cemented by calcareous material into a hardpan" and is immediately above a glacial till

Size class: macrofossils

• almost all elements appear to be teeth or bone fragments but there are also a "few foot bones of horse"

Reposited in the ROM

Collection methods: salvage,

• ROM and University of Saskatchewan collections

•discovered by "employees of the Dominion Forest Nursery Station... while excavating for sand" and visited by "the writer and his wife" in 1940, although it is not clear whether material was collected during this visit

Primary reference: L. S. Russell. 1943. Pleistocene horse teeth from Saskatchewan. Journal of Paleontology 17(1):110-114 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 20317: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 26.03.1995

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• fossils may derive from gravel overlying Floral Fm. and therefore may be Wisconsinan or younger (SkwaraWoolf 1981)
Mammalia
 Perissodactyla - Equidae
Equus niobrarensis Hay 1913 horse
listed as Equus sp. by SwaraWoolf 1981
 Artiodactyla - Cervidae
Cervus sp. Linnaeus 1758 deer
 Artiodactyla - Bovidae
Bison sp. Hamilton-Smith 1827 bison
 Carnivora - Mustelidae
? Taxidea sp. Waterhouse 1839 badger
 Proboscidea - Elephantidae
Mammuthus sp. Brookes 1828 mammoth
"mammoth" teeth: listed as Proboscidea by SwaraWoolf 1981