Ice Age Fossils Found in 2013 Find Home in Fremont Children's Museum

More than 50 ice age fossils found during a 2013 utility pipeline seismic retrofit project in Fremont have found a home, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission officials said Friday. The fossils, which may date back as far as 1.8 million years, have been donated to Fremont’s Children’s Natural History Museum at 4074 Eggers Drive, according to the SFPUC.

Crews discovered the fossils while they were upgrading two water transmission lines near Interstate Highway 680 and Mission Boulevard. They unearthed an upper leg bone or humerus of a bison in August 2013 and then more than 50 other fossils.

“While we know there is always the possibility of encountering something surprising while upgrading the water system, we did not expect to find ice age fossils in such numbers,” Dan Wade, program director of the SFPUC’s Hetchy Hetch Water System Improvement Program, said in a statement. He said it’s important the fossils be curated and scholars, students and the public have access to them.

“We are very pleased to partner in this endeavor with the Children’s Natural History Museum to make this possible,” Wade said. The fossils were found in two separate geologic layers, SFPUC officials said. Fossils in one layer are from the Rancholabrean North American Land Mammal Age, 11,000 to 240,000 years ago, according to SFPUC officials. Bison, horse, deer, camel, elk, brush rabbit, pocket gophers and mice lived during the Rancholabrean period, SFPUC officials said.

Fossils in the other layer may belong to the Irvingtonian North American Land Mammal Age, dating from 240,000 to 1.8 million years ago, according to SFPUC officials. SFPUC spokeswoman Betsy Rhodes said scientists at the children’s museum will confirm whether the fossils do belong to the Irvingtonian period, in which freshwater snails, fish, crayfish, mussels, reptiles and amphibians lived.

“The fossils are well preserved,” paleontologist Joyce Blueford said in a statement. She is the board president of the nonprofit Math Science Nucleus, which manages the children’s museum, SFPUC officials said.

“There aren’t many places where students can see local fossil history in the Bay Area,” she said. “That is what makes this collection in our museum so special,” she said.

The find may be even more special since the Irvingtonian period got its name from what’s called the Irvington District in Fremont, where a group of boys and their mentor Wes Gordon found fossils in the 1940s, SFPUC officials said.

By Bay City News

Photo courtesy SF Water