 |
| Sisters (and, suddenly, ground-breaking paleontologists) Carol Ritzert, left, and Mary Jo Michaels, pictured in front of the tortoise fossil Ritzert discovered recently on a Lincoln County beach. TODAY photos by Dave Price. |
|
(Or, it could be just a big, fancy rock.)
By Niki Price
Oregon Coast TODAY
[scroll down to read the original story to which this update applies...]
The big, domed rock that emerged from a mudstone hillside on a Lincoln County beach earlier this month certainly looks like a turtle. It has cracks that look like scutes, the bony sections that make up a tortoise shell, and lies next to a smaller mound that resembles a creature’s head.
But last week, after a big rainstorm eroded a few more inches of sediment around the find, paleontologists and fossil experts reluctantly agreed: it’s probably not the remains of an ancient turtle after all.
Bill Hanshumaker, a science educator at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, visited the site with retired University of Oregon professor Dr. William Orr and beach fossil hunter Guy DiTorrice on Sept. 15.
“When I first saw it Sept. 5, it looked just like a turtle shell. But by the time we went back, three or four more inches had eroded away, which gave the object a different symmetry. The curvature continued inward, whereas if it were a tortoise it would turn outward,” Hanshumaker said Monday.
Orr also determined that the cracks on the object are too numerous to be considered scutes. A modern day turtle has 40 to 50 different bony plates, or scutes, in its carapace. This object, which is surrounded by mudstone that dates back 20 million years, appears to have more than 200 sections.
It is more likely that the 30-inch by 24-inch ovoid is a concretion. This type of rock is formed when water fills a void in a layer of sediment. When the liquid is eventually removed, finer minerals stay behind to create a rock that is denser, and harder, than the strata that surrounds it. Sometimes, when the original void was created by the body of an animal, the concretion can encase that fossil impression of the creature.
That means that although this object is probably not a fossilized turtle’s shell, it still might reveal something amazing.
“All the other concretions I’ve seen in the Nye mudstone formation are much smaller,” Hanshumaker said. “And they’ve all had something in them that used to be alive, like a crab or a clam. There might be a large fossil inside our big concretion.”
Even though it’s not a turtle, HMSC scientists would still like to see this strange object safely back to the center’s archives. But, because the hillside is eroding very quickly, Hanshumaker and Orr believe an attempted removal would be both expensive and dangerous. The former has withdrawn the application for an extraction permit, which he originally filed Sept. 7.
Hanshumaker said that while he was examining the object on Sept. 15, a canteloupe-sized rock dislodged and fell just a few feet away from his head.
“To get it out would take a lot of money, which we don’t have, of course. But the central motivation is safety. It’s in a precarious position,” he said. “Dr. Orr said it best. If you’re in the wrong place when that thing pops out, you could get squished by your own fossil. That would make you a great candidate for the Darwin Award.”
Orr was referring to a tongue-in-cheek award that is dedicated to humans who “cull the gene pool” by dying in foolish and thoroughly preventable accidents.
It appears that Mother Nature will be handling the extraction process after all. With the winter storm season on the way, it might not be too long before Hanshumaker can examine the big, round, turtle-shaped rock a little more closely. If the rock doesn’t break on impact, he might use ground-penetrating radar or X-rays to determine if there’s anything inside.
The two women who first reported the curious object, sisters Carol Ritzert and Mary Jo Michaels, are a little disappointed. They’ve been watching the rock emerge for the past six months, and were thrilled when scientists first thought it might be a 20 million year old tortoise.
They plan to keep taking photos, at least twice a week, to document what happens next.
Shell shocker:
Beach discovery could be rare tortoise fossil
By Niki Price
Oregon Coast TODAY
[Posted Sept. 9, 2009]
Carol Ritzert has a favorite stretch of beach, a place where she walks several times a week, examining caves and rock formations. Because these visits have helped her think and quieted her worries, the beach holds real significance in her life.
Turns out, this area also holds something of great significance to the scientific community: the fossilized remains of what could be a terrapin, deposited in the mudstone between 15 and 20 million years ago. The specimen, which is about 30 inches long and 24 inches wide, appears to have the domed, patterned carapace of a turtle or tortoise.
If it is, this creature could be the biggest fossil discovery on the Oregon coast in the last 50 years.
“We’re still waiting for official confirmation from an expert paleontologist. But, in my mind, this is a very significant find,” said Bill Hanshumaker, public marine educator at the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center. “We’re hoping we can stabilize, preserve and extract it, so that it can be studied.”
Ritzert has been studying it, from a distance, for the past six months. At first it was a round, buff-colored rock about the size of a dinner plate, protruding from the earthen wall above her favorite beach (the location of which, for security purposes, is top secret). As the slope weathered away, the rock grew larger and more curious. Eventually, Ritzert showed it to her sister, Mary Jo Michaels.
“It was Mary who really figured it out,” Ritzert said. “I thought it was a big dinosaur egg, or maybe a dinosaur belly. She stood back and said, ‘Carol, it’s a turtle.’ She’s truly the one who saw it.”
At first, Ritzert and Michaels were content just to observe as erosion slowly revealed the shell. About a month ago, however, they began to wonder if it might be important, and if an expert should see it before it crumbled away. They sent photos to Hanshumaker, who was immediately excited by the prospect. Last Saturday, they led Hanshumaker, along with amateur fossil expert Guy DiTorrice, Oregonian reporter Lori Tobias and Oregon Coast TODAY photographer Dave Price, to the site.
“I’m neither a geologist nor a paleontologist,” Hanshumaker said. “But I can see a carapace and scutes, and I can see the sutures. Some people who have seen the pictures say it could be a concretion, but I’ve never seen a concretion of this size, and the pattern of the scutes is pretty distinct. And what must be emphasized is this: it’s in a very precarious position.”
Confirmation will come from William Orr, the retired University of Oregon professor who curates the Condon Fossil Collection at the university’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History. This unofficial state paleontologist, who volunteers his time to help agencies identify and protect their ancient finds, plans to examine the specimen next Monday or Tuesday.
Orr has seen the photos, and he’s excited, too. Reptile fossils are rare, he said, because they have a flexible bone structure that disintegrates easily.
|
“The bones of reptiles never really knit together, so when they die
they literally fall apart,” Orr said. “Whenever we find a reptile, we
get very interested because they’re rare. The only thing more rare is
a fossilized egg.”
“I was struck by the fact that in the photos, it looks like it has a
dome like a helmet. That’s the hallmark of a tortoise, a land terrapin.
If (the carapace) is shaped like a shield, low and flat, hydrodynamic —
that’s a swimming turtle. And to me, this thing looks very, very domed
up,” he said.
It was found in an area with both Nye Formation (20 to 23 million years
old) and Astoria Formation (15 to 20 million years) mudstone,
Hanshumaker said. Paleontologists won’t be able to establish the
specimen’s age until it is removed, along with the substrate and
mollusk fossils in its immediate vicinity.
Hanshumaker has filed an extraction permit application with the Oregon
Parks & Recreation Department, and planned to meet with OPRD
representatives on Sept. 10. Chris Havel, OPRD spokesperson, said his
department knows that time is of the essence but must make sure that
any extraction is done responsibly.
“We’re working with the applicant to get this permit finalized, but we
need to know more about how (the fossil) will be moved, how it will be
treated, and how the people who do the work will be protected,” Havel
said. “We need to protect the shore and any private property rights that
might be involved.”
If his application is approved, Hanshumaker plans to gather a volunteer
crew from the HMSC for the delicate and arduous removal process.
Although he’s not sure, he believes that this fossil is made of the
same fragile rock that surrounds it. He’ll try to stabilize it with a
coat of polymer, followed by gauze and plaster of paris, as he and
other scientists slowly ease it from its ancient matrix.
When and if it is removed, Orr said, this terrapin could tell
geologists and climate scientists a great deal about Oregon’s
environment in the Miocene era. Paleontologists have a special place in
their heart for turtles, he said, because they are creatures that
somehow survived whatever killed the dinosaurs.
“A turtle that big would tell us that there were very mild, almost
tropical conditions on the coastal plain, and that’s important. Then
again, it might have washed down, in one piece, from somewhere else, to
the ocean. It might even be a new taxon, a new species in the fossil
record,” Orr said. “I’m not sure, but I think that it was probably a turtle that was deposited in place, less than a mile from where
it came to rest. But I plan to keep an open mind.”
Ritzert and Michaels hope that someday they will be able to see it, safe and on display in the HMSC Visitor Center.
“It’s going to be disruptive to the environment to remove it. But it’s
going to be gone either way before the winter is over,” Michaels said.
“It can either be removed and saved, or removed by nature, and lost.
And we went for saving it, if we can.”
|
|
