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Millions of Marine Fossils Discovered Beneath Los Angeles High School

Some are almost 9 million years old.

CaLea Johnson|
A Los Angeles high school turned out to be a hotbed for fossils.
A Los Angeles high school turned out to be a hotbed for fossils. | SEAN GLADWELL/GettyImages

For years, students at San Pedro High School have been learning on top of a paleontological goldmine without realizing it. A giant fossil zone recently uncovered beneath the Los Angeles-area school contains remains dating back 9 million years.

Suspecting there were fossils on the property, the school hired the Envicom Corporation to oversee renovations in 2022 and handle any such discoveries. What they didn't know was that millions of marine fossils were waiting to be uncovered. The location is “the largest marine bone bed found in Los Angeles and Orange counties,” according to Wayne Bischoff, director of cultural resources at Envicom.

The company began the excavation work in June 2022. Since then, it’s found a massive layer of fossils with 120,000-year-old shells from the Pleistocene epoch, and a bone bed with 8.7 million-year-old fish and mammal remains from the Miocene epoch. Additionally, a layer of phosphorus-containing rock that appears to be 8.9 million years old shows signs of volcanic activity from the time.  

NPR reports that scientists have identified over 200 species so far. The prehistoric organisms include clams, seabirds, dolphins, turtles, and the largest shark species to ever live. Although many of the uncovered fossils are from extinct creatures, several species still reside off the coast of California. Envicom has already given many of the fossils to local institutions for research, including the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.

The find is significant enough to excite any paleontologist. Bischoff tells NPR, ”I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I’ve never heard of a site that was this rich before [...] It’s the entire ecosystem from an age that's gone, and yet we have all this evidence to help future researchers put together what an entire ecology looked like 9 million years ago.”

The nature of the fossils makes sense, considering that what is now Los Angeles was completely submerged under the Pacific Ocean for 90 million years. Construction workers working on the city’s metro system have unearthed 2000 marine fossils alone. One plumber found a whale skull while digging an irrigation ditch in Lincoln Heights in 1931.

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