Originally Posted: September 18, 2018
Between 1961 and 2002, Angola was virtually inaccessible to scientists while the country struggled with war and civil unrest. Now, sixteen years after peace was achieved, never-before-seen fossils excavated from Angola’s coast will be on display in a new exhibit, called “Sea Monsters Unearthed,” which will debut at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History on November 9.
In 2005, Louis Jacobs and Michael Polcyn, paleontologists at Southern Methodist University and collaborators on the exhibition, led the first major expedition in Angola since the acceptance of the plate tectonics theory in the mid-1960s. Dubbed Projecto PaleoAngola, the expedition looked to study the effects of the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean on life over the last 130 million years. The result? Stunning fossils that reveal how the ancient South Atlantic Ocean ecosystem was at once strange and familiar.
In the following interview, Jacobs and Polcyn tell us more about Angola’s ancient ocean, what once lived there and how its fossil record offers clues for the future.
Describe the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean
The formation of the South Atlantic is a complex geological story. Africa and South America were once one large landmass. Beginning about 134 million years ago, heat from deep within the Earth caused the landmass to split in two—a theory called plate tectonics—and drift apart gradually. This made way for a new ocean crust between the continents. As the next 50 million years passed, water began to flow freely and the new ocean grew wider, leaving us with the puzzle-like fit of Africa and South America separated by the South Atlantic Ocean that we recognize today. READ MORE