Montreal is a city alive with fossils, if visitors know where to look and what to look for, reports La Presse.
About 470 million years ago, Montreal was actually a warm, shallow tropical sea, filled with a huge array of aquatic life. When the creatures died, they became part of the seabed, leaving behind fossils and sediment.
When it was time to start building the city of Montreal, builders excavated the rock that had once been at the bottom of the sea for use in construction. To this day, fossils and layers of sediment can be seen in the building blocks of many of Montreal’s most notable buildings.
For example, the Redpath Museum – which hosts a 14-building walking tour of the area – has a small, ancient fossil of its own. On the west side of the building, you can see the remains of a white shell with fine ribs or raised stripes, which belongs to a branch of animals called brachiopods.