'Spectacular' treasure trove of fossils re-discovered in Brazil

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In 1951 two men arrived in Dom Pedrito, a town in southern Brazil, to carry out geological mapping of the pampa, or low grassland. There they found a rocky hill brimming with the remnants of a wetland ecosystem that existed During the Permian period, when Brazil was covered in horsetails and ferns.

The researchers didn’t leave a description of the exact location of the extraordinary site they had unearthed, a three-acre patch among about 450 acres of land so as time passed the site was lost to science.

 

This year, Brazilian paleontologists announced that the site at Dom Pedrito has been rediscovered. Researchers excavating the site say that so far they’ve identified at least six or seven plant species, one species of mollusk, and two fish species; some of the creatures are already known to experts, and some might be new.

“We’ve collected hundreds and hundreds of fossils,” says study coauthor Felipe Pinheiro, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Pampa. “It’s absolutely amazing. It’s beyond what I’ve ever seen. There’s so much there, it would be impossible to collect them all. The fossils we’ve already found will take decades to study.”

This spectacular site may have stayed in obscurity were it not for the childhood curiosity of Celestino Goulart and his desire to learn more about what was unearthed on his family’s land over 70 years ago.

Source

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I have worked and collected many fossils from the Paraná Basin in my early years as a Geology undergrad student! It is relatively easy to find many Palaeozoic marine fossils, such as trilobites, the Mesosaurus, bivalve shells, etc. There are also many well-preserved Mesozoic fossils as well, mostly from life in continental settings. The Glossopteris flora mentioned here is one good example, I actually have some samples sitting here in my desk