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Subway paleontology: LA construction unearths fossil trove
Metro Red Line train entering Union Station. (Photo By METRO96 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles subway system is expanding and so too are the number of prehistoric fossils being recovered as crews dig beneath the city.
Since work on one extension began in 2014, workers have routinely turned up fossilized remains of rabbits, camels, bison and other creatures that roamed the region during the last Ice Age. But Paleontologist Ashley Leger says “the big one” uncovered by her team is the intact skull of a juvenile mammoth.
California’s stringent environmental laws require scientists to be on hand at certain construction sites. Transportation officials say paleontologists have staffed all L.
A. subway digs beginning in the 1990s, when work started on the city’s inaugural line.
