While yard work can often be a tedious task, it’s led to a lot of excitement for Lauren Sayers. The vegetation management technician was working on July 7 when she discovered a fossil believed to be at least 100 million years old.
Lauren was in a tailings area on the east edge of Syncrude’s North Mine conducting weed control when she came across something gleaming.
“It caught my eye. I saw something a little bit shiny and so I looked and thought, ‘Oh, that’s cool, that’s a shell,’” Lauren explained. “It was just sitting there so perfectly, ready to be seen I guess.”
The ammonite fossil as it was found by Lauren Sayers at the Syncrude Mildred Lake site.
What she’d discovered amongst the rocks was an ammonite fossil. Ammonites are an extinct, spiral-shelled marine animal, whose fossils are found in areas around the world, including in the oil sands region, which was once covered by a vast sea. The fossil had likely been washed out from where it originated in a clay wall just above where it was found, still mostly intact.
A close-up image of the ammonite fossil found at Syncrude.
While ammonites are a common find, this fossil is considered scientifically significant and will be shipped to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta to be added to its provincial collection.
Amanda Ehler, a senior Syncrude geologist, says that oil sands mines provide good conditions for fossil preservation. She believes that this ammonite came from the Clearwater Formation which was deposited during the Albian stage of the Lower Cretaceous Period which would date the fossil at between 100 and 113 million years old.
Lauren Sayers holds the ammonite fossil she found while working at the Syncrude Mildred Lake site on July 7, 2025.
The discovery is the most recent in a growing list of prehistoric pick-ups at Suncor sites. Back in 2011, a Suncor shovel operator made one of the most famous fossil finds in the oil sands. While working at our Millennium Mine, Shawn Funk unearthed one of the best-preserved nodosaur — a land-dwelling dinosaur — fossils ever found. Then in 2023, while operating a shovel at the same site where Lauren found her fossil, Jenna Plamondon dug up the remains of the oldest Cretaceous plesiosaur found in Alberta.
Given her exciting experience and knowing the rich history of ancient discoveries in the oil sands, Lauren says that from now on she’ll be sure to take an extra look at anything on that ground that catches her eye.