A bulldozer operator moving blasted rock along the approach to the new ferry terminal at Duke Point notes a peculiar pattern in a large block and sets it aside. Later, fossil collectors discover it is part of an ancient ecosystem that flourished over the past 300 million years. Written by two paleontologists, the newly revised West Coast Fossils (Harbour $18.95) by Rolf Ludvigsen and Graham Beard uses maps, charts and fossil photographs to imagine what creatures inhabited Vancouver Island during the Cenozoic, Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. 1-55017-179-8

[BCBW WINTER 1998]