Originally Posted: Nov. 13, 2018
Fossils that are thousands of years old were found at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport earlier this month.
In fact, they’re about 11,000 years old and are the only remains dating to the Ice Age that have been found at the airport.
The airport announced the findings on Twitter Tuesday afternoon, though the fossils were found on Nov. 2 and 3.
“Two employees in DFW’s Environmental Affairs Department found the pieces of the mammoth tooth while conducting routine field tests for potential impacts to the environment,” a spokesperson for the airport said in an email to the Star-Telegram.
A bison thigh bone was found during an annual safety/Life Saver Exercise.
Dale A. Winkler, of the Department of Earth Sciences at Southern Methodist University, evaluated the fossils and helped determined how old they are.
On Thursday, the bones will go to SMU where they will be studied, preserved and curated.
These aren’t the first fossils that have been found at the airport. A 25-foot long Plesiosaur — basically a prehistoric giant marine creature — was found during the construction of Terminal B in the 1960s. It was on display at the airport but has been removed. READ MORE