Tens of thousands of Jurassic fossils found at secret site

A team of scientists from the Natural History Museum has unearthed tens of thousands of fossils during a three-day excavation at what’s been described as one of the most important Jurassic sites ever found in the UK.

The fossils, thought to be from around 167 million years ago, were originally identified by two hobby palaeontologists studying old research papers during lockdown.

The secret Cotswold site was once a shallow tropical sea. Its inhabitants were probably caught in an underwater mudslide. This would explain their exquisite preservation.

The finds are now being prepped and studied, with some being added to the Natural History Museum’s collections.

20 July 2021