Fossils From The Very Deep Subsurface (Underwater, Underground, Or Both)

Fossils From The Very Deep Subsurface (Underwater, Underground, Or Both)

It is an old topic, but still interesting.

Oil drillers have struck dinosaur off Norway, the
Research Council of Norway announced this week.
by James Owen, National Geographic News, April 26, 2006
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_dinos.html

The World's Deepest Dinosaur Finding –
2256 Metres Below The Seabed, Science Daily,
The Research Council of Norway, April 25, 2006
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060425091449.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-04/trco-twd042406.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/721.php

By the way, a Cretaceous turtle and Ordovician trilobite were
found in separate drill cores in Florida.

In 1955, the Amerada Petroleum Corporation drilled wildcat well
12 miles northwest of Okeechobee, Florida. A well core from
9,210 feet contained the remains of a Cretaceous aquatic turtle.
The core, which was composed of gray argillaceous dolomite,
was 4 3/ 8 inches in diameter, recovered the anterior or front
end of it. Its skull and hind portions were outside the area of
the core (Olson 1965:4).

Further north, A similar chance recovery from a drill core was
made in Madison County, Florida. In 1944, the Hunt Oil Company
recovered drill core from depth of 4,628 feet. It contained a
Middle Ordovician trilobite (Colpocoryphe exsul) (Olson 1965:4).

The paper that describes and illustrates the Florida trilobite is:

Whittington, H. B., 1953, A new Ordovician trilobite
from Florida. Breviora 1953, vol. 17, pp. 1-6

The above paper, with a picture, is at:
https://archive.org/details/cbarchive_39107_anewordoviciantrilobitefromflo1952

The paper, but without the picture, is also at:
http://biostor.org/reference/biostor/4489

In addition, a Paleocene mammal skull was recovered
from a depth of about 2,460 feet below the surface from
an oil well in Caddo Parish in Junior Oil Company,
Beard No. 1 in Sec. 9, T.18N., R.16W. (Simpson 1932).
See https://web.archive.org/web/20080515014027/http://members.cox.net/pyrophyllite/Paleocene.html

Reference cited:

Olson, S. J., 1965, Vertebrate fossil localities in Florida.
Special Publication no. 12, Florida Geological Survey.
http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00000475/00001/1j

Simpson, G. G., 1932, A new Paleocene mammal from
a deep well in Louisiana. proceedings of the United States
National Museum, vol. 82, art. 2, pp. 1-4.
https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/16067
https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/16067/USNMP-82_2943_1932.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Yours,

Paul H.