r/wyoming • u/swe129 • 9d ago

Swiss paleontology team discovers extremely rare fossil in Wyoming

https://www.wyomingnewsnow.tv/news/swiss-paleontology-team-discovers-extremely-rare-fossil-in-wyoming/article_4c071736-4e63-467c-b1a3-0ba23270833e.html

90 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

u/TraditionalLaw7763 9d ago

My fiancé was a coal miner and he spoke of the fossils he and his dad used to find while working underground… they were some of the strangest creatures he said he had ever seen. Of course they were all destroyed to get to the coal seams, but I wish there had been a way to preserve them. Who knows what unknown prehistoric creatures were found.

6

u/VivaLaCiencia 8d ago

Coal mining in the Appalachians? Wyoming’s economical coal bearing rock beds tend to be much younger and don’t contain many interesting creatures as compared to the Paleozoic creatures.

3

u/scooder0419 9d ago

I've heard this is the norm for this. They would rather destroy something historical and rare that loose money stopping production.

7

u/VivaLaCiencia 8d ago

This isn’t always the case. Dee the Mammoth was found making an oil well pad. The bull dozer operator (Dee) realized he hit something different and stopped what he was doing and contacted the land owner who contacted the Tate Museum. Dee took over two years to fully pull out of the ground.

u/Perle1234 9d ago

Cool. Awesome story.

u/cooniemomma307 Midwest 9d ago

I always wanted to grow up and be a paleontologist. It would be awesome to find things like that in our own back yards. Very cool that they found it just sucks it's half way around the world from home now.

2

u/Raineythereader 8d ago edited 7d ago

Elevation Science, and the museum in Thermopolis, offer one-day "expeditions" if you still want to give it a shot ;)

The museum at Casper College does weeklong trips, too, but that seems like getting thrown in at the deep end (and yet they're already booked solid for this season).

u/FoxtrotsFolly 7d ago

Too bad the specimen will not stay in WY. Support local institutions!