Are there fossils near my BC property?
A report lists the fossil collections published within 5 km of the lot; on Crown land fossils belong to the Province, and on titled land you need the owner's leave to collect.
The Paleobiology Database holds 4,166 published fossil collections in BC, 20,693 finds in all, from Cambrian trilobites to Ice Age mammals.
Opens the report at this answer. A PID always finds the lot; an address needs an exact match.
What the answer means
A report lists the fossil collections published in the scientific literature within 5 km of the lot: what was found, how old it is, the rock formation and how far away, as precisely as the paper placed it. The Province's own fossil maps aren't open data.
- Who owns fossils
- Since 2005 fossils aren't minerals under the Mineral Tenure Act, so a mineral claim can't take them (BC Reg. 5/2005). On Crown land they are part of the land, administered under the Land Act; in parks, ecological reserves and protected areas the Ministry of Environment decides. On titled land, collecting needs the owner's permission (our reading).
- Collecting on Crown land
- Hand-collecting a few common fossils from the surface is allowed, for personal use only: they may not be sold or taken out of BC. Make sure the spot isn't private land, a park or an area under a resource tenure.
- What may not be collected
- Significant fossils, such as vertebrates, trackways, exceptionally preserved or new finds, must be left and reported to the Province (its Report a Fossil form), the Royal BC Museum or a local museum.
- Important Fossil Areas
- The Province maps Important Fossil Areas and asks for a fossil impact assessment there before activities that disturb bedrock on a large scale are authorised. Its map is public on its site but isn't open data, so a report doesn't read it.
- Protected sites
- A few fossil sites are designated under the Heritage Conservation Act, and others are protected by Land Act reserves, mineral reserves or parks, such as Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park and the Burgess Shale in Yoho National Park.
- What the report's list is
- Collections entered in the Paleobiology Database from published papers: where fossils were found and described, not what lies under the lot. Many are placed to the nearest minute, up to about 2 km off, so none is placed on a lot. Most of BC's rock has never been searched, so none listed says nothing either way.
Our summary of the Province's fossil management pages, read 2026-10-13.
Source: Fossil management in British Columbia, Province of BC (summarised in our words, read 2026-10-13); Fossil collection and use, Province of BC (summarised in our words, read 2026-10-13); Fossil protection, Province of BC (summarised in our words, read 2026-10-13); Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0).
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