Fern Fossils

I am interrupting my photos of the Canadian Rockies to post some pictures from last Saturday's hike with son Edward. We went fossil hunting in the area of Slide Mountain and Racehorse Creek and found plenty of what we were were hunting. This is a fossil of fern leaves along with other leaves in carbonaceous shale. Another fossil of a palm frond is shown below. This rock is only about a foot across, but the rock below is a huge boulder.

The whole area is a fossil hunter's paradise, but these were found in the area of a massive landslide that took place in 2009 (more information with the other picture), uncovering thousands of fossils. Slide Mountain is in Whatcom County, Washington in the foothills of the North Cascades and overlooks the Nooksack River and Racehorse Creek and the formations are referred to as Eocene Chuckanut formations, layers of shale and sandstone.