Jurassic fossils found during East West Rail works

Fossils including sharks' teeth from the dinosaur age have been uncovered during ground investigations for East West Rail.

East West Railway Company (EWR Co) has begun the first phase of ground work between Cambridge and Oxford for the new railway.

Soil samples taken along the route unearthed the teeth as well as ammonites - marine creatures from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Neil Esslemont, engineering specialist-geotechnical at EWR Co, said the ground work would "allow us to construct the railway safely and in an efficient manner".

East West Rail will eventually link Oxford and Cambridge via Milton Keynes and Bedford.

The sharks' teeth fossils were found in Chapel Hill, near Haslingfield, in south Cambridgeshire and are not the first finds here.

Other fossils found by others include ancient marine reptiles and giant ammonites from similar periods, while mammoth tusks and hippo skulls from the Pleistocene Ice Age have similarly been uncovered.

The ground investigations are expected to take several weeks to complete.

EWR Co said the work reduced the risk and amount of potential land needed for the railway while also preventing delays.

"We need to understand the ground conditions to allow us to construct the railway safely and in an efficient manner," Mr Esslemont said.

"By understanding the ground conditions thoroughly, we can design the railway to be cheaper to build, so we spend less taxpayers' money on construction.

"And partly it's a risk management exercise. If we understand what's here, then we're reducing the risk that we need to deal with during the construction phase."

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