Seashell fossil from age of dinosaurs found in Turkey

This video is called Giant rudist fossils in Rudist Rock Cave, Jamaica.

78-million-year-old sea fossil puts Malatya under water

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

Two academics have found a 78-million-year-old fossil in the southeastern province of Malatya.

Mehmet Önal and Hasan Kavruk, both from Malatya’s İnönü University, told the Anatolia news agency that they have found a rudist fossil, termed an “index fossil” because the type of organism it preserves became extinct at a reasonably well-defined date; thus the absence or presence of the fossil can be used to help date marine sedimentary rocks.

Kavruk said the fossil indicated that the region had at some point in the past been below sea level and been home to numerous such rudist fossils, adding: “The 78-million-year-old rudist fossil purchased by Istanbul University for millions of pounds during the university’s foundation years was also unearthed in Malatya.”

The paleontologist added: “The fossil we found is a rudist, which went extinct 70 million years ago”…

Kavruk also explained: “The fossil is an important piece of scientific evidence confirming that the region was [covered by] a sea in the past.

It is estimated that around 18 million years have passed since the sea receded in Malatya, which has an almost 400-million-year-old marine past. That is why extremely old fossils are found in the area.

Rudists are a group of fossil asymmetric bivalve seashells, which became extinct in the last period of the age of dinosaurs, the Cretaceous.