Bounty draws a crowd. Fossil enthusiasts will be heading up to Cache Creek, the gateway to B.C.'s Cariboo Country for a weekend of riding, big, open fields, cowboys and the Eocene fossil beds at McAbee and Kamloops Lake where fish, insects and plant fossils abound.
While the site is now an arid hillside topped with finger-like hoodoos, some 51 million years ago it was a flourishing lake. As fish and other inhabitants died, their remains settled to the bottom and were preserved in the fine-grained clay, ash and silt that would one day become shale. McAbee, named for the nearby village of McAbee on the Thompson River, is one of the richest and most accessible Eocene deposits in North America. The Eocene (55.8-33.9 million years ago) was marked by significant global warming, which peaked about 50 million years ago, and an explosion of plant and animal species that can be traced directly to many of those that inhabit the Earth today.
One of the more coveted fossils to be found here is the fresh water fish, Eohiodon rosei. It can often be found complete with much of its finer detail preserved. As well as plentiful fossils, the site also affords a magnificent view of the Thompson River and Valley. .
