THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190447
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: 80 lines
At NASA's Langley Research Center, where the work normally has a futuristic flavor, two surveyors have uncovered a window into the past.
In an old rocket test area where a utility contractor was digging a trench for a high-pressure water line, the surveyors spotted some odd-looking bones in an excavated pile of dirt.
Gerald Johnson, chairman of the geology department at the College of William and Mary, was called in for a look.
His conclusion: The bones are those of a 3 1/2-million-year-old whale that died on a sea floor when what is southeastern Virginia was 30 to 40 feet underwater.
At the time, the Atlantic coastline was probably some 40 miles west of its current location, Johnson said Thursday. Richmond, had it existed then, would have been a seaport.
The find is significant, Johnson said, because discoveries of intact skeletal remains of ancient whales are relatively rare. In his 31 years in the area, he said, this is the fourth such discovery. It is the latest of three whale skeletons found within about a mile of one another, including one at the Hampton landfill.
``It's always great to find a fossil whale,'' he said. ``Not everybody's done that in their lifetime. It's exciting.''
He said the find will advance humanity's knowledge of the giant marine mammals and their evolution.
The bones, the first of which were found a week ago, are being dug out of a layer of reddish-brown sandy clay about four feet down.
Among those pulled out so far are several vertebrae about 6 inches long, some rib pieces, part of a jaw and an ear bone. Thursday, Johnson and two students gingerly scraped dirt away from a 2-foot-wide section of skull still embedded in the trench wall.
Based on what's been found so far, Johnson already knows it's a baleen whale. That's the type that eats by opening its mouth extremely wide and gulping enormous quantities of water and plankton - drifting masses of tiny aquatic plants and animals.
Instead of teeth, it has baleen - hundreds of thin plates, made of the same material as human fingernails - hanging from its upper jaw. As it closes its mouth, its tongue forces the water out and the food is trapped by the baleen.
Johnson doesn't know yet if this whale belonged to a species that still exists today or is extinct. His best guess at the moment is that it's a finback, a species that has a lifespan similar to that of humans.
The bones found, so far, indicate that it was an adolescent whale, not quite mature, about 20 to 25 feet long.
Johnson was able to date the bones by studying the shells found in the same layer of soil. The marine environment of that era had a rich abundance of shellfish, Johnson said - clams, scallops and some exotic varieties that no longer exist.
The most significant bone found so far, Johnson said, is the ear bone - a smooth, delicately cupped piece about the size of a child's hand. A close examination of that bone will reveal the whale's genus, he said.
Johnson hopes to reconstruct as much of the skeleton as he can and get it displayed at either the Smithsonian Institution or the Virginia Natural History Museum in Martinsville. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
It is not known if the newly found whale belongs to a species that
exists today.
Color photo by JIM WALKER, The Virginian-Pilot
Discoveries of intact skeletal remains of ancient whales are
relatively rare, says Gerald Johnson, left, chairman of the geology
department at the College of William and Mary. In his 31 years in
the area, this is the fourth such discovery. Based on what's been
found so far, Johnson says it's an adolescent finback, about 20 to
25 feet long.
Photo by JIM WALKER, The Virginian-Pilot
John Giorgis, left, and Mark Leeper, students at William and Mary,
uncover whale bones and nearby shells that help date the mammalian
fossil. Geologist Gerald Johnson says it's the third whale skeleton
found within about a mile of one another.
KEYWORDS: FOSSIL by CNB