California crews uncover possible 45-million-year-old ‘thunder beast’ fossils in Oceanside (Image Credit: City of Oceanside)
The city has kept the exact location under wraps; other outlets that covered the release reported this is meant to protect the site from unauthorised digging that could damage further fossils still in the ground. Joseph El Adli, PhD, the city’s principal palaeontologist, discovered the site during routine monitoring and immediately secured the area to begin additional excavation.
His team worked over a period of seven days to expose the fossil bones from beneath several tons of hardened mudstone and sandstone before encasing them in a plaster field jacket for safe transport to an off-site laboratory for eventual preparation. The City of Oceanside is currently withholding the exact location of the discovery to protect both public safety and the integrity of the site (Image: City of Oceanside Site)
What happens next for the newly discovered Oceanside fossils
Other outlets that reviewed the city’s release reported that technicians will eventually free the bones from their plaster jackets and the surrounding hardened mudstone, then stabilise them with glues and resins so they can be preserved, to eventually place them in a museum collection where scientists and the public can study them. The fossils, now encased in plaster field jackets, have been transported off-site for lab preparation.