fossils Archives - Disasters News

Nestled on Great Abaco Island in The Bahamas, Sawmill Sink a mysterious blue hole has revealed an extraordinary trove of fossils that shed light on the island’s ancient history. For over a decade, beginning in 2005, researchers plunged into the perilous depths of this natural wonder, uncovering secrets from a world long vanished. "This was probably the most important site I'd ever had a chance to get involved with," said David Steadman, curator emeritus at the Florida Museum of Natural History. However, these groundbreaking explorations came to a halt five years ago when a devastating hurricane wreaked havoc on Great Abaco, disrupting the fossil collection efforts and leaving the remaining treasures submerged, possibly forever. Formation of Sawmill Sink Sawmill Sink, like other...

Bones encased in rock rotted away, and water-borne silica seeped into the crevices, solidifying into opal and preserving precious details for 100 million years. The resulting fossils now provide evidence that there may have been an Age of Monotremes before other mammals came to dominate. "It's like discovering a whole new civilization," says Australian Museum paleontologist Tim Flannery. "Today, Australia is known as a land of marsupials, but discovering these new fossils is the first indication that Australia was previously home to a diversity of monotremes." Currently, only five species of these rare mammals exist: one platypus and four echidna species, shared between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Due to their reptilian-like egg-laying feature, it has long been thought that these...

Tag: fossils

Sawmill Sink: A Time Capsule of The Bahamas’ Ancient Past

Newly Discovered Fossils Suggest Ancient Age of Monotremes in Australia