Kind: captions
Language: en
when we first came out we were just
looking for whatever we could find the
important thing we wanted to find were
mammal jaws and mammal teeth that they
were elusive so I one day I was walking
along in an area I'd been many times
before and I saw this white round rock
sitting there on kind of its own little
pedestal
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and I picked it up and looked at it and
as soon as I looked at it I saw these
teeth that were just smiling out at me
and I just almost had a heart attack
she'd found part of a mammal skull one
that could fit in the palm of her hand I
was so excited because it was really
really well preserved she brought the
fossil to the museum where it was
cataloged and filed away it was years
before Tyler happened to cross it
I was downstairs just looking through
the collection pulling open drawers and
they're sitting right in the front was
the palate of a mantle and I was
absolutely astonished I couldn't believe
it because I was thinking to myself like
there's this complete of a skull here
there's got to be more
Sharon's fossil had been found in a
particular kind of rock called a
concretion sometimes concretions can
form around organic material like bone
and if conditions are right they protect
the fossil inside for eons
Sharon's skull was incredibly lucky
because it showed that yes there are
fossils inside and this is the type of
rock to look for Tyler decides to change
his game and look for concretions to
crack open they hit the bluffs their
eyes peeled for promising rocks
there's a whole hillside of choices one
catches Tyler's eye they see this rock
this concretion on the ground the very
first one that I pick up and I crack it
and it was amazing I just found a mammal
skull and that was just the beginning
and it was crazy the way it happened
I mean you could go your entire career
as a mammal paleontologist and not find
a skull from this time period that's how
rare they are we found I think five or
six mammal skulls within about a 10
minute time span we're just laughing on
the outcrop nothing like that's ever
happened to me before I mean amazing
they'd cracked the case
and unearth the trove of time capsules
filled with clues so Tyler and Ian have
discovered is a rosetta stone and corral
Bluffs is telling us something very
important it's telling us about
ourselves how we got to be here
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