Don Nolan-Proxmire Headquarters, Washington, DC July 22, 1996 (Phone: 202/358-1983) Michael Finneran Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA (Phone: 757/864-6121) RELEASE: 96-145 ANCIENT WHALE SURFACES AT NASA LANGLEY Thanks to the sharp eyes of two surveyors, the fossil remains of a 3.5-million-year-old whale have been discovered at NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA. The bones of the 30-foot juvenile baleen whale were found July 15 by two surveyors working at a piping trench under construction. The findings include a skull, tympanic bulla (part of the ear bones of a whale), vertebrae and rib fragments. More fossil remains are still to be unearthed. Langley is loaning the remains to the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, for study, said John Mouring, Langley's facility master planner and preservation officer. The discovery, considered rare but not unprecedented, opens a window into the history of the Langley site about 3.5 million years ago, when the Atlantic shoreline was probably 30 to 40 miles west of its present location and covered the Center, said Dr. Gerald (Jerre) Johnson of William and Mary's geology department. "The research opportunity will provide insight into the development of whales through geologic time," Johnson said. -more- -2- Preliminary work indicates the whale bones are the remains of an almost mature creature that died and was quickly buried on a broad, wave-swept sand shoal. The bones were about four feet below the surface of the ground in a reddish-brown sandy clay of the upper weathered part of the Yorktown Formation. The lower beds in the trench are sands comprised of broken marine mollusks, barnacles, and other groups. This soil grades upward into the weathered part of the Yorktown Formation containing the whale remains. Shell material that once surrounded the whale has been dissolved away by groundwater. A gravel, sand and mud sequence overlies the whale-bearing beds; these were deposited in an ancestral Chesapeake Bay about 100,000 years ago. The highly broken condition of most of the shells in the beds immediately below the whale tells of the strong wave and current activities that prevailed in the area when the whale came to rest on the sea floor. Johnson said the chronological age of the whale is based upon the relative size of the tympanic bulla to the vertebra, and the degree of fusion of the plates on the central part of the vertebrae. Even though the jaw has not been found, the size of the ear bone indicates a baleen rather than a toothed whale. The whale remains were discovered by two surveyors while a utility contractor, T.A. Sheets, dug an eight-foot-deep piping trench in the old rocket test area of the Center on the south side of Lewis Loop near East Bush Road. The surveyors, Vanessa Butler and Kit Cain of Sverdrup Technologies Inc., a Langley contractor, were working in the area when they spotted two vertebrae and assorted rib pieces in the excavated Earth pile. Knowing that Langley grounds are rich in prehistoric and historic artifact resources and that they are managed here by law, they took the bones to Mouring. Mouring determined that animal remains not associated with an archaeological context do not require preservation in the federal system (except for Bureau of Land Management and National Forests). "This is paleontology - not cultural resources," he said. "If it is human-related (prehistoric or historic) it must be managed here at Langley under the National Historic Preservation Act." - end - NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to domo@hq.nasa.gov. In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type the words "subscribe press- release" (no quotes). The system will reply with a confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. A second automatic message will include additional information on the service. NASA releases also are available via CompuServe using the command GO NASA.