WEBVTT - How Can Rivers Actually Protect Fossils?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, Lauren Bobibam Here. Winding through the South Carolina

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<v Speaker 1>low Country, the Cooper River is a redlined haven for

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<v Speaker 1>sport fish and shorebirds. The waterway originates in Berkeley County's

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<v Speaker 1>Lake Moultrie. From there it proceeds all the way down

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<v Speaker 1>to Charleston, where it merges with two other waterways to

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<v Speaker 1>form the world famous Charleston Harbor. The Cooper River took

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<v Speaker 1>its name from Anthony Ashley Cooper Bayed, seventeenth century English lord.

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<v Speaker 1>As time wore on, it became a lifeline in the

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<v Speaker 1>region's burgeoning rice trade. But the Cooper also bears the

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<v Speaker 1>hallmarks of a far more ancient chapter in South Carolina history.

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<v Speaker 1>If you know where to look, and you've got some

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<v Speaker 1>scuba gear handy, you might just find a mammoth tusk

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<v Speaker 1>lurking beneath the water's surface. Before the article. This episode

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<v Speaker 1>is based on how Stuff Work, spoke by email with

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<v Speaker 1>Matthew Whees. He and his father, Joe Harvey, are experienced

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<v Speaker 1>local divers who patrol a Cooper for fossils, many of

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<v Speaker 1>which end up on display at the Berkeley County Museum

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<v Speaker 1>in monks corner South Carolina, and not all the giants

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<v Speaker 1>they encounter are prehistoric. To hear we'se tell it. Run

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<v Speaker 1>ins with living modern day river beasts aren't uncommon, he said.

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<v Speaker 1>I've had a catfish swallow my hand in a log

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<v Speaker 1>jam underwater, manatee break the surface while I was swimming

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<v Speaker 1>back to the boat, and alligators swim towards me. But once,

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<v Speaker 1>he reports, he came nose to nose with the gator

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<v Speaker 1>and measuring about ten feet or three meters long. Underwater

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<v Speaker 1>fossil hunting is a global pastime outside the US, divers

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<v Speaker 1>have encounted paleo treasures in such places as Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico,

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<v Speaker 1>and the Bahamas. Back in a Bona Fide Lemur Graveyard

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<v Speaker 1>was discovered in the submerged caves of Madagascar. The big

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<v Speaker 1>find was made possible by an international collaborative effort between anthropologists,

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<v Speaker 1>paleontologists and scuba divers. Hundreds of bones appeared in the

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<v Speaker 1>underwater sediments, and some came from contemporary species like the

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<v Speaker 1>invasive black rat. Other remains were left behind by animals

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<v Speaker 1>that when extinct within the past millennia. The site quickly

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<v Speaker 1>established itself as the world's biggest cache of pacu lemur fossils.

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<v Speaker 1>An ancient relative of the rofed lemur, this creature was

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<v Speaker 1>about twice as heavy, weighing an estimated twenty two pounds

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<v Speaker 1>that's ten kilos, but even it would have been utterly

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<v Speaker 1>dwarfed by the guerrilla sized mesopropath Fecus, a gargantuoud lemur

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<v Speaker 1>also represented in these caves. Pygmy hippo, elephant, bird, and

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<v Speaker 1>horned crocodile material was also recovered by the dive team,

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<v Speaker 1>along with the rare, virtually complete skull of yet another

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<v Speaker 1>bigone lemur species. Getting access to the bounty wasn't easy.

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<v Speaker 1>The caves in question were likely dry at some point,

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<v Speaker 1>but today they're part of a flooded sinkhole right now.

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<v Speaker 1>The system's most fossil laden cave runs eighty two ft

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<v Speaker 1>that's twenty five deep. It's a dark environment with a

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<v Speaker 1>complex layout full of horizontal passageways and murky waters. In short,

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<v Speaker 1>this is no place for novice divers, and cave diving

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<v Speaker 1>in general is a high risk sport if you wander.

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<v Speaker 1>Of course, you can't always ascend straight up to the surface.

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<v Speaker 1>And so to avoid getting lost, the scuba specialists on

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<v Speaker 1>that team tracked their pathways with about eight hundred and

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<v Speaker 1>eighty feet that's two hundred and seventy meters of safety lines.

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<v Speaker 1>There's another site in the North Sea. Great Britain was

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<v Speaker 1>connected to the rest of mainland Europe as recently as

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<v Speaker 1>eight thousand, two hundred years ago. For this reason, mammoth

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<v Speaker 1>bones are periodically dredged up out of the North Sea,

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<v Speaker 1>which separates the UK from its continental neighbors. Another precious

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<v Speaker 1>sinkhole is the Page Ladson site in northwestern Florida. Hidden

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<v Speaker 1>below a river, it's yielded some of the oldest known

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<v Speaker 1>human artifacts in North America, along with masted on bones,

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<v Speaker 1>including some fourteen thousand, five hundred and fifty year old

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<v Speaker 1>fossils bearing scars that suggest the animals were butchered by

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<v Speaker 1>ancient people there. Here, tannins are a real nuisance, a

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<v Speaker 1>vital component in leather making a Tannins are chemical compounds

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<v Speaker 1>released by various plants. When these seep into ponds or rivers,

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<v Speaker 1>they can turn the water blackish brown, which can definitely

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<v Speaker 1>impair a diver's visibility. In some corners of the river,

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<v Speaker 1>the tannins help block out sunlight, shrouding everything deeper than

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<v Speaker 1>about ten feet or three meters beneath the surface in

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<v Speaker 1>inky darkness. To see clearly, the divers make good use

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<v Speaker 1>of high wattage underwater lights. Back north, in the Cooper River,

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<v Speaker 1>divers face the same problem. Buieze explained that he and

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<v Speaker 1>his father wear cave lights attached to their helmets. The

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<v Speaker 1>rest of the duo's equipment would look pretty familiar to

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<v Speaker 1>other recreational divers. Since the Cooper gets strong tidal currents,

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<v Speaker 1>the waters speed at any given moment affects their schedule.

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<v Speaker 1>A faster currents make for shorter excursions. So why do

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<v Speaker 1>people go through all this trouble when there are loads

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<v Speaker 1>of fossils hanging out on dry land. Well, for one thing,

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<v Speaker 1>immersion in water has some preservation benefits. Deep in the

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<v Speaker 1>bowels of a sunken cave, bones are less likely to

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<v Speaker 1>be disturbed either by scavengers or the ravages of open

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<v Speaker 1>air climates, And whereas land fossils are often caked in rock,

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<v Speaker 1>some of the bones and flowing rivers get polished clean

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<v Speaker 1>by the currents. Most of the material wee's discovered out

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<v Speaker 1>in the Cooper River comes from two different points in

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<v Speaker 1>geologic time. The river's most sought after fossils are probably

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<v Speaker 1>shark teeth from the Miocene epoch, which lasted from twenty

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<v Speaker 1>three million to five point three million years ago. Some

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<v Speaker 1>of these chompers get quite large. A tooth from the

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<v Speaker 1>extinct Megalodon shark can be over seven and a half

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<v Speaker 1>inches that's nineteen centimeters long. We said sharks teeth are

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<v Speaker 1>the most common fines, though whale earbones come in a

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<v Speaker 1>close second. Other Cooper River fossils were laid down during

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<v Speaker 1>the more recent Pleistocene epoch, and that began just two

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<v Speaker 1>point six million years ago and ended a mere eleven thousand,

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<v Speaker 1>seven hundred years before the present. Back then, sea levels

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<v Speaker 1>were lower and the Carolina coastline lay farther to the east.

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<v Speaker 1>Over the years, we'se and Harvey have extricated the bones

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<v Speaker 1>of Pleistocene mammoths, cappa bears, hoofed herbivores, and giant beavers,

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<v Speaker 1>which we've done a whole episode on a but to summarize,

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<v Speaker 1>During the Last Ice Age, North American wetlands were occupied

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<v Speaker 1>by casterroides, which were eight foot or two and a

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<v Speaker 1>half meter beavers that likely weighed two hundred and twenty pounds.

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<v Speaker 1>That's a hundred kilos or more. Today's episode is based

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<v Speaker 1>on the article river Bottom Bones The Strange world of

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<v Speaker 1>underwater fossil hunting on how stuffworks dot Com, written by

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<v Speaker 1>Mark Mancini. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio

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<v Speaker 1>in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced

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<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio,

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