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Author: Subject: Fossilized whale bone is no spring chicken (SDUT)
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[*] posted on 11-9-2002 at 12:39 PM
Fossilized whale bone is no spring chicken (SDUT)


( http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20021109-9999_1m9b... )

Find in Tijuana 3 million years old

By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 9, 2002

TIJUANA ? A giant bone discovered last summer by residents of a neighborhood in western Tijuana is part of the fossilized remains of a baleen whale that lived 3 million years ago, scientists say.

The finding "will allow us to obtain far more details about what was happening during this period," said Francisco Javier Aranda, a paleontologist who specializes in marine mammals at the Autonomous University of Baja California.

The whale's remains were protected by a blend of sedimentary layers known as the San Diego formation, which dates back 21/2 to 3 million years to the Pliocene Epoch.

Paleontologists have found similar remains along the coastline from northern Baja California to San Diego, suggesting there was a large bay "not enclosed like San Diego, but open like Monterey Bay," said Thomas Dem?r?, curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park.

"The sands that accumulated on that bay buried all these wonderful skeletons of marine life," he said.

A preliminary report by Aranda said the remains include 20 to 24 upper vertebrae and eight to 10 lower vertebrae, as well as more than 20 ribs. The animal was about 15 feet long, about half the size of the giant whale sharks of the same period.

The whale's skull fragments, which were found nearby, should provide crucial details about the mammal, Aranda said.

The remains are in the custody of Mexico's National Institute of History and Archaeology at its Museum of Regional History in Ensenada. They will eventually be put on display.

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[*] posted on 11-9-2002 at 01:08 PM
Interesting article, which brings up another question:


Has anyone visited the Museum in Ensenada? Where is it anyway?

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