What Lies Beneath

The majority of fossils gathered at the canal—mostly miniature fragments that are impossible for the untrained eye to imagine as being part of an animal bone or plant—end up bagged and numbered in a single-story warehouse near the lab. Housed within the Panama Canal Authority compound, the depository is filled with green, yellow and blue plastic crates stacked chest high. Each crate contains dozens of individually labeled pouches: “Crocodile skull,” “turtle fragments” and “bone fragments” are well represented. Shells rest inside smaller, clear storage boxes.

In addition to the items recovered from the Panama Canal, there are fossils from Santander, Colombia. Inspired by the wealth of information he dug up in Panama, Jaramillo helped convince the Smithsonian Institution and the Colombian Geological Service to implement a paleontology rescue project where Isagen, the third largest power generator in the country, was building a dam last year. Where massive engineering projects shuffle the earth, “it is worth investing a little bit on science,” says Jaramillo.

Article Appeared @http://www.newsweek.com/2014/04/25/what-lies-beneath-248159.html

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