Submerged
mastodon may provide clues to ancient mysteries
Eight
feet below the surface of the Wakulla River lies the remains of a mastodon
covered in sediment. And within that sediment could be the artifact that
unlocks the mysteries of the last chapter of the Pleistocene Age.
For
about 12 days, a team of archaeologists from the Aucilla Research Institute has
used the floating swim dock at Wakulla Springs as a staging area for their
underwater excavation. Theirs is a painstaking operation made difficult by the
cold water, wetsuits, cumbersome diving equipment and curious manatees that are
constantly moving around buoy markers.
The question is whether there is another
mastodon body there. Or is there evidence of human artifacts that would suggest
interaction with the mastodon?
Out of
the sediment, one of the men on the dredge barge picked out a long, gray
conical object, a spear point of some kind. He bagged it and brought
it over to the swimming float where an assistant cataloged it,
inventoried it and performed tests on it. It just may prove to be the
clue they were looking for.
Read full
story here:
Fish
story: How a coelacanth discovery set off a flurry of science, subterfuge
by OLIVIA DESMIT
The 1938 discovery of a coelacanth is an oft-told tale.
This species of fish was thought to have been
extinct for 65 million years when one was caught in the western Indian Ocean. Lesser
known is the tale of a coelacanth sighting thousands of miles away in the
mid-1990s, when one was spotted for sale at an Indonesian fish market by a
marine biologist on his honeymoon.The story of that discovery — and how it was
told to the world — is filled with shocking twists and turns. At the center of
it all was Mark Erdmann, now vice president of Asia-Pacific Marine Programs at
Conservation International.Joe Rowlett recounted the
story in this recent post on Reefs.com.
In
July 2018, another population of
Indonesian coelacanths was discovered in Raja Ampat in the
eastern fringe of the country, but Erdmann — the honeymooner who had spotted
the fish in the ’90s — was not surprised.
Read rest here :
t
No comments:
Post a Comment