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Saturday, August 23, 2008

Big new fossil find in northern Canada

From 70 million years ago:
The fossil fields were discovered in the 1980s by Canadian geologists surveying the northern tip of Devon Island, but have only recently been excavated by paleontologists. Scientists are trying to reconstruct the prehistoric ecosystem that prevailed at a time when Arctic climes were much warmer, large trees grew north of Baffin Island and the polar sea was ruled by razor-toothed water fowl and marine reptiles called plesiosaurs.
Read more here (National Post, August 21, 2008)

Here's more about plesiosaurs from an earlier find: "The remains of a prehistoric reptile that was "as long as a bus, with teeth larger than cucumbers ... in a head that could swallow an adult human whole," Yikes. Think of that next time you get on a bus ... or maybe not ...

I wonder if this will be another Avalon peninsula? (See The Avalon explosion: The dawn of life reveals another intricate puzzle)

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