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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/15/fossils-los-angeles-high-school>
"Marine fossils dating back to as early as 8.7m years ago have been uncovered
beneath a south Los Angeles high school.
On Friday, the
Los Angeles Times reported that researchers had discovered two
sites on the campus of San Pedro high school under which fossils including
those of a saber-toothed salmon and a megalodon, the gigantic prehistoric
shark, were buried.
According to the outlet, the two sites where the fossils were found include an
8.7m-year-old bone bed from the Miocene era and a 120,000-year-old shell bed
from the Pleistocene era.
The discoveries were made between June 2022 and July 2024, LAist reports.
In a statement to the
Los Angeles Times, Richard Behl, a California State
University at Long Beach geologist, said that researchers were testing the
chemical and mineral composition of the fossils.
“We got to find clues and piece those clues together,” Behl said, adding that
fossils from the Miocene era were encased in diatomite, a sedimentary rock
composed of the fossilized skeletal remains of single-cell aquatic algae.
According to Behl, the diatomite indicates that the area was rich with algae,
which helped foster a rich ecosystem that comprised various marine creatures.
Echoing Behl, Wayne Bischoff, the director of cultural resources at Envicom
Corporation, told
LAist: “It’s the entire ecosystem from an age that’s gone …
We have all this evidence to help future researchers put together what an
entire ecology looked like nine million years ago. That’s really rare.”
Photos published on
LAist and in the
Los Angeles Times feature a vertebrae
fossil and rib bone of an extinct dolphin species, jawbone of an extinct
saber-tooth salmon, which had extendable fangs from its mouth, and fossils of
hundreds of small fish vertebrae."
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*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
