U.S. geologists have discovered a treasure trove of fossils from an area near the Panama Canal, which they say could throw a light on life prior to the formation of the land bridge between North and South America.
Image: A bucket dredge operating in the Panama Canal. Credit: S/V Moonrise of Inverness.
The 20 million-year-old fossils, studied by researchers from the Smithsonian Institute , were uncovered by engineers planning to widen the canal and consist of 500 fossils including teeth and bones of rodents, horses, crocodiles and turtles that lived before a land bridge linked North and South America, according to Reuters.
"With these discoveries we will be able to get more information about the process by which the continual land bridge was formed," Smithsonian geologist Camilo Montes told the news agency.
Scientists believe the fully-formed land bridge between the two Americas formed only three million years ago and say by studying the fossils with fossil records from each continent, they will be able to discover the species' origins and a more precise idea of when the bridge formed.
"We will be able to get a much more precise date for when the continents started to close together," continued Montes.
"The closure could be linked to an ice age which affected North America around the same time, perhaps by altering ocean currents. Some have argued the timing of the ice age is a coincidence. A more accurate timeline for the closure could tell us whether those two things were separate or linked."
Geologists have teamed up with engineers since February at the invitation of the Panamanian Government, which is keen to see no artifacts of value are destroyed during the widening.
MyrnaJul 19th, 2008 - 03:24:05
I guess Pizarro must have been reincarnated again as he was supposed to have brought the horse to South America from Spain in the 1500's. Now they find horse fossils millions of years ago on this same continent? Like everything else, 'What goes around comes around.' Not exactly in this context. Ha.
Report this comment