County needs its own natural history museum

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

Vic and I often find scallop and clam shells in our yard while

gardening. Our neighborhood probably held shell middens left by early

Native Americans until development covered them over. But that’s not

all. Underneath the top six feet of dirt in any yard in Huntington

Beach, which is where any traces of human habitation would be found,

lies a deeper layer that could hold mammoth, whale or shark fossils.

We’ll probably never know what archeological and paleontological

riches lay beneath the soil in most parts of Huntington Beach,

because our town is nearly built out. But in other parts of Orange

County, remarkable fossil discoveries are being made as construction

uncovers deeply buried layers.

We probably should define some terms. A fossil is any evidence of

past life that is more than 10,000 years old. Paleontology is the

study of fossilized remains of all species that have lived since life

began. Because Orange County emerged from the ocean only a couple of

million years ago, most of our older fossils are of sea creatures,

while those from the last one and a half million years are Ice Age

animals.

In contrast, archeology deals only with humans and covers human

artifacts as well as human remains. In our area, human artifacts go

back about 11,000 years. But our main subject today is fossils and

paleontology.

We got a glimpse into some of Orange County’s incredible fossil

finds recently. Steve Conkling, chief paleontologist and archeologist

with LSA Associates in Irvine, spoke at Acorn Naturalists in Tustin

last Wednesday. He brought a number of fossils with him, including a

tooth from an extinct shark. The tooth was larger than Steve’s hand

and the jaw that it came from was large enough to swallow a

Volkswagen Beetle.

Conkling said that one reason there are so many spectacular

fossils here is because Orange County requires a paleontologist on

site to look for fossils during large-scale construction projects.

LSA Associates is the company that is generally hired for these big

projects. They employ 22 paleontologists who work year-round

carefully collecting, identifying and cataloging the many finds.

In contrast, the Smithsonian puts only a couple of paleontologists

into the field and only for a few months out of the year. Thus, more

fossils turn up in Orange County than are found across the entire

nation by the Smithsonian because we have more people looking. But

after collection, the Orange County fossils are warehoused because

there is no place to exhibit them. And that is a crying shame.

Some of these fossils are spectacular finds, like 13-foot-long

mammoth tusks and huge extinct whales. LSA is amassing a treasure

trove of fossil material that has high scientific value, because of

the care taken in extracting and cataloging the finds. But there is

no place to exhibit these fabulous fossils. Nor is there a place to

house them that is useful to researchers.

The reason is that Orange County does not have its own natural

history museum. This needs to change.

Conkling may be familiar to our readers because he is the museum

consultant who is guiding the renovation of the interpretive exhibits

at Shipley Nature Center. He loaned a magnificent 15,000-year-old

fossilized skull of an ancient bison to the nature center, where it

is now on display. This particular male ancient bison was uncovered

during construction of Newport Coast Drive.

The species known as ancient bison wandered over our area until

the end of the Ice Ages about 10,000 years ago. Ancient bison stood

7-feet tall at the shoulder, with horns that stretched 4-feet from

tip to tip. The skull of the ancient bison from Newport, partially

flattened by thousands of years of lying underground, is now

available for viewing by the hundreds of elementary school children

who tour Shipley Nature Center every month. It is only one of

hundreds of thousands of fossils that could be displayed, if only

there were exhibit space.

Orange County’s best kept secret is that our coastal plain is even

richer in fossils than the La Brea tar pits. One of Conkling’s

remarkable finds was a saber-toothed cat den that collapsed with two

adult cats and a litter of kittens inside. Their fossilized remains

were uncovered during construction near Jamboree Road and Michelson

Drive.

Also inside the cave were the remains of over 40 dwarf pronghorn,

an extinct species. The pronghorns had injuries to their hindquarters

that suggested that the parent cats hamstrung them and brought them

back to the cave alive so the kittens could practice their hunting

skills. Each bone holds a story and this was only one tale of many

that Conkling told.

Shipley Nature Center and other existing exhibit sites can hold

only a tiny fraction of what is available for display or research. We

need our own Orange County Museum of Natural History. Some of the

buildings at the closed El Toro Marine Base could be used for such a

purpose. All that is needed is a supportive public that is behind the

concept and, of course, enough funding to make it happen.

Let’s make sure that these tremendous fossil resources aren’t kept

hidden. Let’s put these fossils in our own county museum where the

scientific community can use them, where the public can enjoy them,

and where children can be awed by them for generations to come.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].