Lisa Cormier was walking her dog along a familiar path on the beach at Cape Egmont, PEI, last month looking for sea glass when she noticed what looked like intertwined branches. A closer look revealed something much more shocking—a rib cage over half a meter long with a spine and skull buried in Prince Edward Island’s characteristic red soil.
“The whole skeleton was there,” the school teacher said in a recent interview.
A fossil is seen in an undated photo. Lisa Cormier, a school teacher from Prince Edward Island, was walking a familiar path on Cape Egmont Beach with her dog, looking for sea glass, as she had done for years, when she spotted the fossil, which looked like intertwined branches. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Lisa Cormier. GAC
Cormier said her mother-in-law had told her that the sand on the island could be a good home for fossils, and that her daughter-in-law had a good chance of finding fossilized remains during one of her walks on the beach.
Story continues below the ad
Read more: Huge 180-million-year-old ‘sea dragon’ fossil found in UK reservoir
Read more
-
Huge 180-million-year-old ‘sea dragon’ fossil found in UK reservoir
At first she dismissed the idea with a laugh, but said her mother-in-law was the first to see a photo of her discovery.
Eventually, however, that image made its way to John Calder’s phone.
The Halifax-based geologist and paleontologist said the fossil probably dates back to about 300 million years ago to the end of the Coal Age, or Carboniferous, and into the Permian period, about 80 million years before the first dinosaurs.
“My reaction when I saw that picture was ‘wow,'” he said.
“This is obviously really important because this type of fossil is very rare from this period. And because of its location _ it was covered by the sea at every tide and exposed to risk _ it had to be removed immediately.
The Carboniferous Era was a period of intense global warming, Calder said.
Carboniferous rainforests and wetlands have collapsed in the face of withering heat and drying, he said. Only certain creatures such as reptiles that lay their eggs outside the water were favored to survive, he added.
Trending stories
-
The pilot threatens to turn around after the passenger AirDrops the entire plane
-
Saskatchewan stabbings: What we know RCMP say 1 suspect dead, 2nd on the loose
“And that’s the time period that most rocks on PEI fall under, Early Permian,” he said. “It’s really a transition from the wet, humid Coal or Carboniferous to the dry, hot Permian, and it’s in that transition that this fossil was found.”
Story continues below the ad
Within 24 hours of Calder receiving the photo, a team was assembled to extract the precious fossil. But they only had about five hours before high tide and sunset to get the specimen to safety.
1:56 Internationally Important Fossil Collection Heads to New Brunswick Internationally Important Fossil Collection Heads to New Brunswick – November 24, 2020
Cormier said her husband, Gabriel, and father-in-law, Aubrey, along with Laura McNeil, a geologist who runs Prehistoric Island Tours, a company that offers tours of fossil sites, helped Calder with the delicate excavation.
The rock was soft and crumbly, Calder said. The team simply digs around it and digs out the rock with the fossils embedded in it.
“So that we can remove a pedestal, if you will, from a rock with the fossils in it.”
The team then wrapped the rock in layers of newspaper, burlap and plastic before transferring it to the back of a Parks Canada truck, which drove it to a paleontology repository about 60 kilometers away in Greenwich, PEI, for safekeeping. The Prince Edward Island government will then decide where it should be sent, adding that it will most likely end up in Ottawa or Washington, D.C., for further study.
Story continues below the ad
The fossil will reveal its secrets bit by bit, Calder said.
While the skull and teeth would immediately reveal the lineage, he said a “full, proper description” could take at least a year.
“We will learn as the research develops,” he said. “We’ll get some news on his identity.”
Read more: 6-year-old boy finds 12,000-year-old mastodon tooth in Michigan river
The research will also help scientists understand how global warming will affect animals in the future, he noted.
“The global warming I’m talking about has happened over millions of years,” Calder said. “It wasn’t as sudden as what we’re experiencing today, but it still had dramatic consequences.”
Cormier said he can’t wait to hear what scientists find about the fault.
“Maybe I’m writing a story. Maybe they’ll name it after me,” she said with a laugh.
“And if it’s something we’ve never seen before, it will redefine the history of science.” So it’s pretty cool. Incredible.
And if we discover other species like this, then my species will be a sort of model upon which other discoveries will be based. So many possibilities.”
Story continues below the ad
Even if it’s not one-of-a-kind, she said the fossil is a rare find.
“I’ll still be proud to have discovered it.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on September 5, 2022.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
Add Comment