Fossil find one of largest

Press, 3 February 1986, Page 36

Fossil find one of largest

NZPA-AP Washington Scientists had made the largest fossil find in North America, uncovering more than 100,000 bone pieces of animals 200 million years old at a site in Nova Scotia, says the National Geographic Society. The fossils, representing the crucial period in history when dinosaurs emerged to become masters of the earth, were discovered on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, north of the coast of Maine. A geologist, Paul Olsen, of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty geological observatory, and a biologist, Neil Shubin, of Harvard University led the field work that made the discovery last year. “Bones were sticking out all over the place. They were everywhere,” Mr Shubin said. Some of the more significant finds so far were 12 skulls and jaws of tritheledonts, the reptiles that are closest evolutionally to mammals. They were the first found in North America and were the largest single collec- 1 tion of these rare fossils in the world, the scientists said. Other skulls, teeth, jaws and bones unearthed at the site along the water’s edge belong to dinosaurs, ancient crocodiles, lizards, sharks and primitive fish. The work, supported by the National Geographic Society and done in cooperation with the Nova Scotia Museum in Halifax, resulted in the researchers moving three tonnes of rock from the Canadian site to their laboratories for further examination. The fossils were found in a rock formation known to geologists as the Newark supergroup, the remains of an ancient, deep rift which stretches from Nova Scotia to South Carolina.