Written by Ilan Hulkower:
Fish fossils dating back to 385 million years ago were discovered to be in a pavement slab outside Inverness Town House in Scotland, the BBC reported Wednesday.
Thousands of people are reported to have unwittingly walked over the slab with the remains, the outlet noted. James Ryan, an employee of a National Trust for Scotland museum, spotted the fossils while out on a walk, according to the outlet.
Fossils of 385 million-year-old fish found in pavement https://t.co/0UdcGylZ1V
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 4, 2024
“Whilst fossil fish are known in pavements in cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh, to my knowledge these fossils seem to have gone amiss,” he told the outlet. “These fossils in the paving slab are the remains of ancient fish dating to around 385 million years ago – around 140 million years before the first dinosaur.” (RELATED: Arizona Man Finds Hundreds Of Tracks On Property That Predate The Dinosaurs)
The stone used in the pavement was quarried from the Scottish Highlands, the BBC reported. “Caithness flagstone [where the fossils were found] was laid down as sediment over a period of thousands of years at the bottom of a giant freshwater lake which stretched from the Moray coast up north to Orkney and Shetland,” Ryan said.
The flagstone “is one of the rarest paving stones in the world,” according to BBS Natural Stone Specialists. Ryan added that neither the paleontologist that he talked to about his discovery nor the staff of an Inverness museum were aware of these fossils, the BBC reported.
“This article was originally published in The dailycaller.com“
