Prehistoric sea 'Monster' uncovered in Arctic
February 28, 2008
Courtesy of Far North Science
By Doug O'Harra Forget Jurassic Park and those cuddly velociraptors. For a real prehistoric nightmare, check out what an international team of scientists unearthed last year in the far north Atlantic island group of Svalbard.
The pliosaur would have ruled the sea from the project Artwork by Tor Sponga, BT
With jaws large to munch a modern killer whale and flippers as wide as airplane wings, this ancient marine predator would have stretched 15 meters from snout to stern -; as long as a one of those mondo trailers hauled behind a semi.
So don’t blame the scientists for nicknaming the beast “The Monster.”
“After months of preparing and conserving the specimen at the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, researchers confirmed their earlier suspicions: the 150-million-year-old Jurassic marine reptile is perhaps the largest ever found,” according to the University of Alaska Museum of the North.
“This is one of the largest and relatively complete plesiosaur specimens ever found,” says earth sciences curator Patrick Druckenmiller, who spent several weeks last summer working with a Norwegian research team on the excavation.
“Its discovery in Svalbard also demonstrates that these gigantic animals inhabited the northern seas during the age of dinosaurs.”
A pliosaur was a marine reptile, one of the plesiosaurs, that lived during the age of the dinosaurs, between 205 million to about 65 million years ago. The UA Museum offers this description:
Pliosaurs are characterized by tear-drop shaped bodies with two pairs of powerful flippers used to propel them through the water.
They were top predators during their day, preying upon fish, squid-like animals and other marine reptiles. They averaged 16-20 feet in length with flippers 3-4 feet long. One of the largest known pliosaurs, the Australian Kronosaurus, measures 33-36 feet long with 6-foot-long flippers.
By comparison, the Svalbard specimen, nicknamed “The Monster” by the research team, is estimated to be 50 feet long with 10-foot-long flippers. (More info about sizing your average plesiosaur.)
The critter was discovered on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, at 78 degrees north latitude, only about 800 miles from the North Pole, during the summer of 2006 by a team of Norwegian paleontologists and volunteers from the University of Oslo Natural History Museum, led by Dr. Jorn Hurum. The excavation took place last summer, with the fossil moved to the museum. At least 40 other fossils have been found, and more work is planned for 2008.
A story posted online by the Natural History Museum has more detail:
The team made the discovery in the summer of 2006, when parts of the skeleton, including skull fragments, were found weathering out of the side of a mountain.
“We knew immediately that this was something special. The large pieces of bone and the structure on the fragments told us immediately that this was something big” said Dr. Jorn Hurum.
A larger crew returned in August of 2007 to excavate the fossil. After removing about hundred tons of rock by hand the team was rewarded by uncovering a significant portion of the skeleton.
“Although we didn’t get the entire skeleton, we found many of the most important parts, including portions of the skull, teeth, much of the neck and back, the shoulder girdle, and a nearly complete forelimb (paddle)” said Druckenmiller, “Amazingly, the paddle alone is nearly 10 feet long.”
During its excavation in the summer of 2007, the team of paleontologists and volunteers had to endure challenging arctic weather — high winds, rain and fog, and temperatures hovering around freezing. The team completed their fieldwork in a mid-August blizzard. Throughout the three-week field season the team also had to be constantly on the alert for polar bears.
Although the crew focused on removing the “The Monster”, parts of two other marine reptiles were also collected — a long-necked plesiosaur and an ichthyosaur, a type of extinct sea reptile form the age of dinosaurs that superficially resembled modern dolphins.
Based on the wealth of finds, scientists now recognize Svalbard as home to one of the richest accumulations of marine reptiles in the world.
“The scientific value of such a large locality with unknown species of marine reptiles is just staggering” Jorn Hurum comments.
“From the bones we have finished stabilizing so far this absolutely looks like a new species.”
Most of Far North Science is written and edited by Doug O'Harra, a writer and journalist based in Anchorage, Alaska. |
