Thunder Beasts

In the midst of major infrastructure work last September up the road in Oceanside, paleontologist Dr. Joseph El Adli at the site to monitor the process, spotted bones 12’ down below ground level. Work was halted. El Adli and his team excavated. Over the next few days they dug out a total of 12 limb bones, ribs, and fragments lodged beneath several tons of hardened mudstone and sandstone in Member C of the Santiago Formation. (Complying with California state environmental laws, paleontological and cultural resource monitors are on site throughout construction. The city is keeping the exact spot private.)

The fossilized bones, carefully wrapped, were whisked off to a laboratory for initial analysis. Turns out they had been in place for quite a while— 40-45 million years or so—the dating estimate determined by the age of adjacent rocks and organisms.

Dr. El Adli believes the bones likely belonged to a “large hoofed mammal” from one of two extinct “odd-toed hoofed mammal” families within the order Perissodactyla (of the the Eocene Epoch) that once roamed North America during the Uintan North American Land Mammal Age all those years ago.

The possibilities: of the rhino like land dwelling large animals, herbivores, a member of the Brontotheriidae group known as titanotheres or “thunder beasts”, or maybe an Amynodon, some of whom may have been semi-aquatic.
Next steps: the ancient remains will be stabilized for long term preservation and further examination. Once their identity is clarified, the Oceanside fossils will go to a museum collection where they will be available for further research and eventual public viewing.

Del Mar is not that far from Oceanside where those thunder beasts roamed millions of years ago Wonder what is lurking right here underfoot?