Alberta oil sands yield prehistoric bounty

The northern Alberta oil sands have yielded more than a wellspring of crude oil and controversy: it turns out the area houses a museum's worth of ancient fossils.

As The Canadian Press reports, a heavy equipment operator for oil giant Synecrude managed to unearth a near complete plesiosaur fossil during one of her regular shifts last week, making it the latest in a long list of recent discoveries.

A plesiosaur was a giant marine reptile from the Early Jurassic Period, a finding that corresponds with the oil sands having once been submerged under a prehistoric tropical sea.

The specimen is one of the "bigger ones" according to scientists, and at 20 metres long they say it's "mostly neck."

That same neck allowed the reptilian creature to successfully hunt fish 100 million years ago, after which it would grind up its prey in a mouth full of sharp, pointy teeth.

The remains have been shipped to the Royal Tyrrell Museum near Drumheller, AB where a team of scientists and technicians hopes to have the fossil examined and removed by the end of the week.

Don Brinkman, director of preservation and research at the Tyrrell dinosaur museum, expressed his enthusiasm over the discovery.

"This is a very rare find," he told the CP. "It's a ... marine reptile with a very long neck, small head and short body. The last one recovered was 10 years ago."

"We are hoping that this is another specimen of this kind of plesiosaur. The new specimen is particularly important because it looks to be nearly complete," he added.