About the Dig

An Amazing Discovery

From this point onwards, the excavators started using dental tools to gently remove the clay from any fossil bones hiding underneath. This was painstaking work and took over 3 months and a second field season the following summer to uncover them all. By the end of that time over 2,000 bones had been recovered

The story starts in 2001 when two students uncovered some interesting bones in the side of a cliff in a quarry near Whittlesey, not far from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire.

The students from Portsmouth University contacted their supervisor, who worked with a specialist to identify the bones as being from a Leedsichthys fish.

Three months later a group of experts came to visit the Star Pit, Whittlesey, to see for themselves where the bones were found, and if any more were visible sticking out of the same bed in the cliff. They quickly found a dozen more Leedsichthys bones and realised that there could be many more lying under the cliff, just waiting to be excavated!

Lifting an excavated bone in its plaster jacket.

Lifting an excavated bone in its plaster jacket.

A complete Leedsichthys had eluded science, and so this was a unique opportunity not to be missed: the race was on to organise a full scale dig working with Hanson Brick, the quarry owners. The brick industry has been and continues to be a large part of Peterborough’s heritage.  The quarry was a working brick pit which had been used to extract clay for the manufacture of bricks for many many years. The famous fossil collector Alfred Leeds had collected ichthyosaur specimens from the same pit 85 years earlier.

 

Separating the plaster jacket from the underlying clay.

Separating the plaster jacket from the underlying clay.

 

Willing volunteer diggers needed to be found, excavation equipment sourced and funding secured. In 2002, all was ready to start the excavation in earnest.

Before the detailed work could begin over 20 metres of clay cliff weighing over 10,000 tonnes needed to be removed using heavy diggers and bulldozers. It took 4 days to reach the level where the bones of the fish were found.

From this point onwards, the excavators started using dental tools to gently remove the clay from any fossil bones hiding underneath. This was painstaking work and took over 3 months and a second field season the following summer to uncover them all.

 

The First Find


Matt Riley and Marcus Wood, the students who found the first bones of this fantastic fish, were actually on a study trip to the Star Pit to look for microfossils. Instead they found the biggest species of fish that has ever lived!Picture6Picture5

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