Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 12 december 2017

Subway paleontology: LA construction unearths fossil trove

CHRISTOPHER WEBER
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — As
part of the crew digging
a subway extension under
the streets of Los Angeles,
Ashley Leger always keeps
her safety gear close by.
When her phone buzzes,
she quickly dons a neon
vest, hard hat and gog-
gles before climbing deep
down into a massive con-
struction site beneath a
boulevard east of down-
town.
Earth-movers are divert-
ed, and Leger gets on her
hands and knees and gen-
tly brushes the dirt from
a spot pointed out by a
member of her team. Her
heart beats faster because
there’s a chance she’ll un-
cover what she calls “the
big find.” In this Aug. 15, 2017 photo, paleontologist Ashley Leger shows the skull of a young Columbian mammoth found at the construction
Leger is a paleontologist site of the Metro Purple Line extension in Los Angeles.
who digs for fossils in the Associated Press
middle of a city rather than makes Leger shake her scientists to be on hand at Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits speck of bone that turned
an open plain or desert. head in disbelief came certain construction sites. and Museum, home to one out to be the intact skull.
She works for a company about a year ago, shortly Paleontologists have of America’s most fossil-rich Similar endeavors have
contracted by Los Ange- after construction began staffed all L.A. subway digs sites. turned up subterranean
les transportation officials on the project’s second beginning in the 1990s, Assistant curator Dr. Emily treasures during digs in
to keep paleontologists on phase. She was at home when work started on the Lindsey called it a “pretty other cities. Workers at a
hand as workers extend getting ready for bed when city’s inaugural line, said remarkable find,” noting San Diego construction site
a subway line to the city’s a call came in from one of Dave Sotero, spokesman that while thousands of dire found fossils including parts
west side. her monitors. for the Los Angeles County wolf and saber-toothed of a mammoth and a gray
“They’re making sure that “It looks big,” he told her. Metropolitan Transporta- cat remains have been un- whale and multiple layers
they’re recovering every The next morning, Leger tion Authority. covered in L.A., there have of ancient seashells.
single fossil that could possi- knelt at the site and rec- Paying for the paleontolo- been only about 30 mam- Last year, crews working on
bly show up,” Leger said of ognized what appeared to gist staff from Cogstone moths. a development near Bos-
her team of monitors. “They be a partial elephant skull. Resource Management is A few hundred pounds ton’s seaport uncovered a
call me anytime things are It turned out to be much factored into the project’s and the size of an easy 50-foot (15-meter) wooden
large and we need to lead more. After 15 hours of cost, he said. When scien- chair, the skull is especially boat possibly dating as far
an excavation.” painstaking excavation, tists are brought in to see rare because both tusks back as the late 18th cen-
Since work on the exten- the team uncovered an what crews might have un- were attached. It’s being tury. Lindsey praised Cali-
sion began in 2014, fossil- intact skull of a juvenile earthed, work on the proj- studied and is available for fornia’s efforts to ensure
ized remains have routinely mammoth. ect continues, albeit in a public viewing inside the science and urban de-
turned up from creatures “It’s an absolute dream different location. museum’s glass-walled Fos- velopment overlap, while
that roamed the grass- come true for me,” said “Our crews try to be as sil Lab. With a nod to Holly- bemoaning what bygone
lands and forests that cov- Leger, who spent the pre- mindful as possible to help wood, the 8- to 12-year-old treasures may have been
ered the region during the vious decade at a South them do their jobs. We get Colombian mammoth was lost before the regulations
last Ice Age, about 10,000 Dakota mammoth site with out of their way,” Sotero named Hayden, for the went into place in the ear-
years ago. no discoveries even close said, adding that when the actress Hayden Panettiere, ly 1970s. “Most of the past
They include a partial rab- to the size of the one in Los mammoth skull was uncov- featured in the TV series is below the ground, so
bit jaw, mastodon tooth, Angeles. “It’s the one fossil ered, construction work- “Nashville” and “Heroes.” you’re only going to find
camel foreleg, bison ver- you always want to find in ers helped deliver it to the The Cogstone monitor at it when you dig,” she said.
tebrae, and a tooth and your career.” mouth of the site. the construction site had “As the city grows, I’m sure
ankle bone from a horse. California’s stringent en- From there, the skull was been watching her on tele- we’ll find more exciting fos-
But the discovery that still vironmental laws require hauled a mile or so to Los vision before spotting the sil material.”q