Paleontólogos amadores encontram 'tesouro jurássico' no interior da Inglaterra:watnlos poker

Legenda do vídeo, Paleontólogos amadores encontram 'tesouro jurássico' no interior da Inglaterra

The story…

Jurassic fossils found in the UK

fossils

Need-to-know language…

ancient past – a long time ago

natural history – study of plants and animals in their natural environment

excavate – remove earth to uncover old objects hidden in the ground

preservation – quality of remaining the same as it was

fragments – small pieces of something

Answer this…

What covered the area of the dig in the past?

Transcript

A race against time to reveal our ancient past.

The team from the Natural History Museum has just three days to excavate this unique site.

The Cotswold quarry holds a treasure trove of sea creatures that lived during the Jurassic period. What's here is so extraordinary, the location is being kept secret.

Tim Ewin, palaeontologist, London’s Natural History Museum

We've got another really nice exceptional specimen here. It's actually a brittle star. It's likely to be a new species. It's the quality of preservation. It's the number of fossils that we're finding. But it's also the diversity - it's really unprecedented in geological sites of this age across the world.

This area was once covered by a shallow tropical sea - living there were animals like starfish, sea urchins, brittle stars and sea cucumbers.

The site was discovered by local fossil hobbyists Nev and Sally. But at first, the quarry didn't look too promising.

Sally Hollingworth, amateur fossil hunter

We were finding very small fragments of like plates of sea urchins. Just tiny, tiny fragments, though. Nothing really spectacular. When we got it home and cleaned it up, he was like 'Oh my God, Sally, you've got to come and see this...’ And there’s this beautiful Jurassic sea creature coming to life.

With so many fossils here, the challenge is working out which ones to keep. The very best are now heading to the Natural History Museum. The team says it's the discovery of a lifetime.

Did you get it?

What covered the area of the dig in the past?

The area was covered by a shallow tropical sea.