A construction project at San Pedro High School in Los Angeles has revealed a treasure trove of fossils dating back nearly 9 million years. The discovery is believed to be the result of an area that was once fully underwater, explaining the abundance of marine fossils found.
Among the fossil finds are beds of shells, millions of fish bones, and even the fossilized remains of a prehistoric megalodon shark. This unique opportunity for students at San Pedro High School allows them to study fossils up close and personal, unlike most high schoolers who only get to learn about them through textbooks and videos.
The construction project began in 2022, and since then, researchers have uncovered over 200 species of sea creatures, including saber-toothed salmon, shorebirds, and sea turtles. The fossil finds are expected to continue for the next two years, with millions of bones from various sea creatures being unearthed.
“This represents an entire ecology of the ocean nine million years ago,” said Wayne Bischoff, director of cultural resources at Envicom Corporation. The discovery has led to a new era of concentrated studies that will bring notoriety to the community and high school.
The campus was unknowingly sitting atop two different fossil hotspots: a bone bed from the Miocene era (nearly 9 million years ago) and a shell bed from the Pleistocene era (roughly 120,000 years old). The find confirms existing scientific ideas that ancient Los Angeles was once underwater.
Source: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a62226776/fossils-under-high-school/