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Ancient "Shark Graveyard" Discovered In Egyptian Desert
DOGO News • • science
Key Points:
- Paleontologists led by Dr. Tarek Yassin from Cairo University discovered a "shark graveyard" in Egypt’s Western Desert, revealing that the area was once a shallow tropical sea teeming with marine life.
- Between 2020 and 2022, the team excavated 14 fossilized shark teeth from the Abu-Tartur Plateau, dating back 70 to 80 million years and belonging to five distinct shark species.
- Among the finds were two shark species never before identified in Egypt, including an ancient relative of the deep-sea goblin shark and an extinct crow shark, marking potentially the first African discovery of these species.
- The accumulation of teeth occurred gradually over millions of years as sharks shed teeth on the seafloor, which became fossilized in sediment, indicating that the species may not have coexisted simultaneously.
- Dr. Yassin emphasized the discovery’s significance in revealing a diverse ancient marine ecosystem in North Africa and expressed hopes for further exploration to uncover more about the region’s prehistoric environment.
