Joggins Formation

Result from the Joggins Formation #paleostream! This Canadian site is an absolute classic and even if you are not familiar with its name you probably know at least one of its major players.
This seasonally dry environment preserves much of what we would consider a typical Carboniferous flora, scale trees, "seed ferns" and many horsetails. Flooding events and wildfires would have produced lots of dead wood which probably piled up in channels of this river system.
Such a log jam is the setting for our piece, with the healthy forest in the background. It offers the opportunity to observe the aquatic and terrestrial faunal elements together. This turbulent depositional environment isn't that good for animals to preserve so must stuff from here isn't too well preserved and fragmentary. With one exception: the tree stumps that were preserved standing still upright in the strata turned out to be little fossil treasure chests, often times housing fossils of early tetrapods and other creatures, most famous of which is Hylonomus, often called the "earliest reptile". The tree stump fauna is the main claim for Joggins but there is actually a diverse fauna beyond that as well, mostly consisting of teeth and scales which unfortunately are usually not good enough to include here.