Gunflint Chert
-
Gunflint Chert (GIS11)
Notes specific to this specimen: This is a fantastic specimen! Multiple very clear stromatolite colonies throughout the specimen. All the more impressive because it’s from the world-famous Gunflint Iron Formation. This piece is from our original discovery in 2025. Beautiful deep red colonies with a natural black halo unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Polished with brilliant shine on front face only. Back and edges are naturally rough.
SIZE: 1.5″ x 3″
Name Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit Gunflint Iron Formation
Site Ontario, Canada
Date 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$285.00Gunflint Chert (GIS11)
$285.00 -
Gunflint Chert (GIS12)
Notes specific to this specimen: This is an unusually large stromatolite colony for this site. Also from the world-famous Gunflint Iron Formation. This piece is from our original discovery in 2025. Beautiful deep red colony with obvious laminae. Polished with brilliant shine on front face only. Back and edges are naturally rough.
SIZE: 2″ x 3″
Name Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit Gunflint Iron Formation
Site Ontario, Canada
Date 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$140.00Gunflint Chert (GIS12)
$140.00 -
Gunflint Chert (GIS15)
Notes specific to this specimen: Notes specific to this specimen: This is one of the most interesting specimens we’ve ever seen! Multiple very clear stromatolite colonies throughout the specimen and in a variety of colors with contrasting dark laminae. All the more impressive because it’s from the world-famous Gunflint Iron Formation. This piece is from our original discovery in 2025. Beautiful colonies with strawberry and deep red colonies with dark laminae bands characteristic of this site. This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Polished with brilliant shine on front face only. Back and edges are naturally rough.
SIZE: 3″ X 4″ X 1.5″
Name: Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age: Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit: Gunflint Iron Formation
Site: Ontario, Canada
Date: 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$360.00Gunflint Chert (GIS15)
$360.00 -
Gunflint Chert (GIS16)
Notes specific to this specimen: These stromatolites from the Gunflint Iron are so incredibly unusual. Every one is so unique! I’ve never seen such a variety of pattern and color as we do in these. This one has purple, red, white, yellow, brown, grey, black and more! This piece is wedge-shaped, so we polished two perpendicular sides to show the longitudinal and cross cut of the colonies. Beautiful piece!
SIZE: 2″ X 2″ X 4″
Name: Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age: Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit: Gunflint Iron Formation
Site: Ontario, Canada
Date: 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$365.00Gunflint Chert (GIS16)
$365.00 -
Gunflint Chert (GIS21)
Notes specific to this specimen: One of the most colorful pieces so far – incredible piece! Multiple very clear stromatolite colonies throughout the specimen. All the more impressive because it’s from the world-famous Gunflint Iron Formation. This piece is from our original discovery in 2025. Beautiful deep red colonies, surrounded by pink and yellow and white with natural black halos. Unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Polished with brilliant shine on front face only. Back and edges are naturally rough.
SIZE: 5″ X 2.5″ X 2.5″
Name: Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age: Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit: Gunflint Iron Formation
Site: Ontario, Canada
Date: 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$885.00Gunflint Chert (GIS21)
$885.00 -
Rainbow Stromatolite (RS1)
Notes specific to this specimen: This is one of the original discovery pieces, collected by us in August 2025. It is characteristic of all the variety of colors found in this site. We’ve never seen such a variety of colors of stromatolite from a single site. It reminded us of all the colors of Arizona petrified wood – known as “Rainbow Wood” – and this became the source for our naming this new discovery “Rainbow Stromatolite”.
SIZE: 2″x 4″x 1.5″
Name Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit Gunflint Iron Formation
Site Ontario, Canada
Date 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$285.00Rainbow Stromatolite (RS1)
$285.00 -
Rainbow Stromatolite (RS2)
Notes specific to this specimen: Another one of the original discovery pieces, collected by us in August 2025. Unusual wine coloring with distinct colonies.
SIZE: 1.5″x 4″x .5″
Name Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit Gunflint Iron Formation
Site Ontario, Canada
Date 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$110.00Rainbow Stromatolite (RS2)
$110.00 -
Rainbow Stromatolite (RS3)
Notes specific to this specimen: Another one of the original discovery pieces, collected by us in August 2025. Deep red colonies surrounded by high iron hematite matrix.
SIZE: 2″x 2.58″x .75″
Name Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit Gunflint Iron Formation
Site Ontario, Canada
Date 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$120.00Rainbow Stromatolite (RS3)
$120.00 -
Rainbow Stromatolite (RS4)
Notes specific to this specimen: Another one of the original discovery pieces, collected by us in August 2025. Unique honey-color colonies with unusual dark laminae. Never seen anything like this!
SIZE: 2″x 2″x .75″
Name Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit Gunflint Iron Formation
Site Ontario, Canada
Date 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$165.00Rainbow Stromatolite (RS4)
$165.00 -
Rainbow Stromatolite (RS5)
Notes specific to this specimen: Another one of the original discovery pieces, collected by us in August 2025. Wild contrasts in the colors of these colonies.
SIZE: 2″x 4″x .5″
Name Collenia sp. (possible new species)
Age Anamikean / Paleoproterozoic – 1.88 billion years
Unit Gunflint Iron Formation
Site Ontario, Canada
Date 2025Documentation: This authentic fossil specimen comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and Origin. In addition, an attractive and informative display card accompanies the specimen.
$150.00Rainbow Stromatolite (RS5)
$150.00
IMPORTANT NEW DISCOVERY IN THE GUNFLINT IRON FORMATION! – This incredible fossil material was discovered by us in 2025 and has never before appeared on the market. These are from a new find we made quite serendipitously of multicolored, macrofossil stromatolite in the Gunflint Iron Formation (GIF) of Ontario. If you’re a fan of Early Life fossils, then you probably know the Gunflint Chert – aka Gunflint Iron Formation – is an ultra famous Konservat-Lagerstatten that upended the science of paleontology in the 1950s when fossils of microorganisms were discovered in its chert beds. At the time, the notion of fossils predating the Cambrian was flatly unaccepted and the announcement was met with great skepticism.
But in 1954 researchers Stanley A. Tyler and Elso S. Barghoorn published their seminal work “Occurrence of Structurally Preserved Plants in Pre-Cambrian Rocks of the Canadian Shield” (Science, 1954 Vol. 119) where they described what appeared to be silicified microfossils of blue-green algae and fungi found in Gunflint Iron Formation dating to about 1.8 billion years ago. This became a turning point in thoughts about the existence of life in the Precambrian of Earth history. They followed up about a decade later with a much more robust study in their paper “Microorganisms from the Gunflint Chert” (Science, 1965 Vol. 149) which effectively opened the floodgates to the study of Early Life deep into the Precambrian.
Fossils from the Gunflint Iron Formation are microscopic and not easy to come by. We have collected GIF specimens since the 1980s, even from the type locality of Gunflint Lake, which we have visited many times. But we have never collected anything other than shale and chert with microscopic specimens that must be thin-sectioned and magnified greatly (x1,000) to see any structures. While the Gunflint is known for its impressive array of invisible prokaryotes, it is definitely not known for macrofossils. This site, in a very remote region, deep in the North Woods, represents the only known occurrence for such incredible and beautiful stromatolite macrofossils in the Gunflint. By purchasing a specimen you will own a piece of paleontological history and will help us in preserving this unique site. As with all our sites, specimens of scientific importance are DONATED to museums, schools, and research facilities around the world