US: 12 million year old whale skull found in Maryland

A fossil weighing over 300 kg found off the coast of Maryland. A 12-million-year-old whale skull was found on a beach in the Chesapeake Bay in the eastern United States, according to a local museum. The discovery was made in October by Pennsylvania native Cody Goddard, who was looking for fossils and shark teeth, a popular activity in the area, the Calvert Maritime Museum said in a statement.

“We had the impression that we had won the Paleontology World Cup! said Stephen Godfrey, head of the museum’s paleontology department. “We don’t yet know what kind of Miocene whale this is,” he added.

A find weighing almost 300 kg

“We won’t know until he” is ready to watch. It took two months to remove and move the skull, stuck in a block of sediment, according to the museum. All this weighs about 295 kg.

It is the most complete fossil whale skull to be found in the Calvert Cliffs area, according to the museum, and has been named “Cody” after its discoverer. Stephen Godfrey said the skull had been handed over to the museum’s fossil lab and that special tools would be used to extract it from the sediment, a process that would take several months.