In the Chilean Atacama Desert, local scientists, along with colleagues from the Smithsonian Institution, studied the skeletons of 75 whales found here, which died about 2-7 million years ago. They were all lying side by side, just a few meters apart. Despite the fact that the remains were discovered in June last year, they still cannot figure out how they ended up here
The bones were found by road workers. “I think they all died at the same time - as if they threw themselves ashore long ago and died. However, we still have no reliable data,”said Nicholas Pienson, curator of the Department of Fossil Marine Mammals at the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History.
The remains are very well preserved, and occupy about two football fields in size. Previously, scientists managed to find the bones of large marine mammals in Egypt and Peru, but the find in Chile is certainly of the greatest interest. Of the 75 whales, 20 had virtually no skeletal injuries. However, the number of complete animal remains can be much higher - not all of the surrounding area has been surveyed yet.
However, in addition to the remains of whales, scientists were able to find the remains of long-extinct aquatic and seabirds, whose wingspan exceeded 5 meters.
"Actually, this is a very unusual situation, we believe that animals died here for some relatively long period of time," - said Erich Fitzgerald, a vertebrate specialist at the Victoria Museum in Melbourne.
However, according to another scientist, a specialist in ancient whales, Hans Theuisson, the whales were not deliberately thrown away, most likely they gathered in the lagoon, but a powerful earthquake or a strong storm led to the fact that the water literally evaporated and the animals ended up on a shallow bottom. “We are seeing signs of ocean water evaporation. This only confirms our version,”the scientist noted.
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With funding from the National Geographic Society, the Smithsonian team uses sophisticated photo and laser scanners to capture 3D images of whales that can then be used to make life-size models.
The Chilean government has declared the area where the remains were found to be a specially protected area, and intends to allow scientists to conduct further excavations.
Note that the Atacama Desert is considered the driest desert on Earth. Atacama is located in South America in northern Chile and is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west, Peru to the north and Bolivia and Argentina to the east. In some places of the desert, rain falls once every several decades. The average rainfall in the Chilean region of Antofagasta is 1 mm per year. Some weather stations in Atacama never recorded rain. There is evidence that there was no significant rainfall in the Atacama from 1570 to 1971. This desert has the lowest air humidity: 0%.
