Anonymous - 11-9-2002 at 12:39 PM
( 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.
Interesting article, which brings up another question:
Anonymous - 11-9-2002 at 01:08 PM
Has anyone visited the Museum in Ensenada? Where is it anyway?