SCIENCE / MEDICINE : A Weekly Roundup of News, Features and Commentary : Bone Discovery Could Have Whale of Impact

A construction worker’s discovery of an ancient whalebone, believed to be 11,000 years old, could mean the land on which Toronto now stands was once covered by an ancient sea.

The bone, more than one foot high, was discovered last week by a backhoe operator in a murky pit during excavation work in downtown Toronto. Officials at the Royal Ontario Museum said the bone may indicate that the area was once covered by the Champlain Sea, an ocean that formed over much of eastern Canada and the United States after the last Ice Age, about 10,000-12,000 years ago.

“We have to be very careful because we could rewrite history, but if it’s authentic, it’s a very significant find,” said Kevin Seymour, a paleontologist in the museum’s bone section.

Seymour said he knows of no other significant evidence of marine life from that period in the vicinity of Toronto. He said further tests, including carbon dating, will be needed to verify the age of the bones, which form a nearly intact vertebra of the baleen family of plant-eating whales.