- Twenty years ago, a cave diver found thousands of fossils in a blue hole on Great Abaco Island.
- The fossils reveal the island’s Ice Age history, with pristine specimens of now-extinct species.
- Hurricane Dorian nearly destroyed researchers’ collections, and the blue holes’ future is uncertain.
Nestled in The Bahamas on Great Abaco Island is a blue hole, Sawmill Sink, that’s filled with a trove of well-preserved fossils that show how much the island has changed since the last Ice Age.
For over a decade, starting in 2005, researchers dove to retrieve the scientific treasure. “This was probably the most important site I’d ever had a chance to get involved with,” David Steadman, a curator emeritus with the Florida Museum of Natural History, told Business Insider.
But the excavations stopped about five years ago when a devastating hurricane wreaked havoc on the island, the fossil collection, and the researchers’ plans to protect the pristine blue holes.
The researchers collected thousands of Sawmill Sink’s fossils before the hurricane. But the rest remain in its underwater depths, perhaps forever.
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