“Ancient Secrets Revealed: Divers Unearth a Treasure Trove of 500,000-Year-Old Fossils in Mysterious Florida Sinkhole!”
Divers Discover A Trove Of Fossils In A Steinhatchee River Sinkhole
Florida Museum/Kristen GraceFossils from an early horse species that were pulled from the river.
In June 2022, Robert Sinibaldi and Joseph Branin were diving in the Steinhatchee River near Sinbaldi’s property, as they had many times in the past. They were intimately familiar with the murky depths of the water. “It’s like diving in coffee,” Sinibaldi stated in a press release from the Florida Museum of Natural History.
At first, the pair had little luck on their dive. Then, just as they were about to move to a new section of the river, Branin spotted horse teeth protruding from the riverbed. As they searched the area, they uncovered even more fossils, including part of a hoof and a skull.
“It wasn’t just quantity, it was quality,” Sinibaldi said. “We knew we had an important site, but we didn’t know how important.” The men soon went to the Florida Museum of Natural History with their discoveries.
Florida Museum/Kristen GraceThe sinkhole held fossils of giant sloths, like these preserved teeth.
An examination of the fossils revealed that they dated back 500,000 years to a period of the Pleistocene known as the middle Irvingtonian, a little-understood time of evolutionary transition. So, why were they all gathered in a sinkhole beneath the Steinhatchee River?
Horses, Sloths, And Armadillos: The Prehistoric Creatures Preserved Beneath The River
Experts believe that the sinkhole in which the fossils were found formed about 500,000 years ago. The animals whose remains were inside had fallen in and perished in its depths, and over time, their bones were covered with sediment and preserved. Then, as the Steinhatchee River shifted its course over the millennia, its waters eventually covered the sinkhole.
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