Another Whale of a Find in South County

Bulldozers working on the grounds of St. Timothy’s Catholic Church on Friday had just rolled over a 5-million-year-old whale skeleton too deteriorated to save, when 30 feet from the blade a second giant skeleton appeared.

“We were very surprised to see another one,” said Marion Kearin, a geology student who works for a paleontologist monitoring construction of a parking structure at the church.

Excitement mounted, she said, when it appeared that this fossil skeleton, which was buried deeper than the first, was much better preserved in a waxy clay layer.

The first of the two whales, both probably about 5 million years old, was found Thursday in a hard layer of gypsum that once had formed at the bottom of an ancient sea. The bones were porous, Kearin said, which indicated they belonged to a mammal.

After a day of painstakingly chipping away the gypsum, technicians uncovered the outline of skeleton at least 28 feet long with a rib cage about 6 1/2 feet wide, although the features were not yet clear enough to identify.

Unfortunately, Kearin said, the whale’s head was missing, which made it impossible to determine its species. For that reason and because the fossil was not well preserved, Kearin said, the find was not considered important enough to warrant excavation.

So about 11 a.m. Friday, after the whale had been measured and photographed by the technicians and filmed by several science teachers from Saddleback Unified School District, the bulldozers rolled over it.

Half an hour later, a bulldozer blade hit yet another skeleton about nine feet underground. By late Friday, the outline of a skeleton at least 21 feet long could be distinguished, although the features were not yet clear enough to identify.

“It is a mammal and encased in marine sediments, so a whale is a real good bet,” Kearin said, adding that technicians would work through the weekend to uncover and identify the skeleton.

Father David Gruver, associate pastor at St. Timothy’s, said the church had agreed to halt further grading through Monday so the scientific value of the second skeleton can be determined.

But Gruver said he is concerned about a longer delay.

“We are kind of hoping it isn’t that valuable,” he conceded. The church has been waiting years for money to build the parking structure, he said.

“The other day, Kathy (Liuzz), the office manager, said nothing can stop us now unless they dig up a dinosaur. And here they found an ancient whale.”

John Minch, a paleontologist from Mission Viejo who is familiar with the region, said the finding of fossil whales in south Orange County is becoming almost commonplace.

Minch said his firm alone, which has been monitoring construction of the San Joaquin Hills Corridor, has found at least half a dozen whales in South County in the last year, including a 26-foot, perfectly intact skeleton that has been placed on public display in Buena Park.

The geologic formation in which these whales have been found, called the Capistrano Formation, dates them as having lived 5 to 6 million years ago, Minch said, when the ocean’s shoreline was along the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains near what is now the community of Rancho Santa Margarita. At that time, he said, the location of St. Timothy’s, at Crown Valley Parkway and Nueva Vista, was under 4,000 to 5,000 feet of water.

Because the area abounds with whale remains, Minch said, scientists are collecting only the better specimens. Most ancient whales would be very recognizable, he said. “They look very much like the whales we have today.”

Kearin, who by Friday evening was exhausted and nursing blistered fingers from the work of unearthing fossils, said it had been “an invaluable experience” for her as a geology student at Saddleback. “You learn a lot more out in the field than in the classroom.”

Moreover, Kearin said that just watching the dig was special for anyone interested in science who happened to walk by. “They may see everything in a museum, she said, “but watching them dug up is exciting. It is nice they got to see it happening in their own back yard.”