Science Teacher Finds Rare 300-Million-Old Dinosaur Fossil In Canada

High school teacher Lisa St. Coeur Cormier was out on a walk with her dog when she noticed something on Prince Edward Island in Canada.

While walking Sammy, she frequently discovers sea glass, but on this particular day, she believed she saw a limb or tree root sticking up through the sand.

"I saw something about two feet long with a strange shape," Cormier told The Washington Post.

"When I looked closer, I realized there was a rib cage. And around that, there was a spine and a skull," added the 36-year-old teacher.

Former middle school science teacher Cormier recognized it as a fossil right away.

But she had no idea how rare and old her find would turn out to be, let alone the excitement it would cause on that fateful day on Aug. 22.

High School Teacher Finds Rare Fossil

John Calder, a geologist and paleontologist in Canada, said per CBC.ca that the fossil looks to date from the Carboniferous period close to the beginning of the Permian period. That's roughly 300 million years ago.

A find like this, according to Calder, is "quite unusual."

The fossil hasn't been recognized. However, Calder said it was probably a reptile or at least one of their near relatives.

He stated relatively few examples had been unearthed from that time and that it may even be a previously undiscovered species.

After Calder got the picture, a team was put together to get the priceless fossil within 24 hours. However, they only had around five hours to transport the specimen to safety before high tide and dark.

How Archaeologists Dig The Fossil Further

Cormier reported via The Globe and Mail that Laura MacNeil, a geologist who owns Prehistoric Island Tours, a business that offers tours of fossil locations, and Gabriel Cormier's spouse and Aubrey Cormier's father-in-law, helped him with the delicate excavation.

Calder described the rock as being brittle and soft. The crew simply extracted the rock that had the fossil embedded in it by digging around it.

The crew then carried the rock to the back of a Parks Canada vehicle, where it was secured in layers of newspaper, burlap, and plastic before being transported to a paleontological repository in Greenwich, Prince Edward Island, 60 kilometers away.

The government of Prince Edward Island will next decide where it must be transported, and it will probably end up in Ottawa or Washington, D.C., for more research.

According to Calder, the fossil's secrets would gradually come to light.

While the ancestry will be immediately apparent from the skull and teeth, he claimed that it may take at least a year to give a "complete, correct description."

He added that the study will also aid scientists in understanding how animals will be affected by global warming in the future.

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