Cool thing: Whale fossils

What better way to celebrate winter solstice than by visiting some great tidepools? We headed out to the tidepools and stopped by the Cabrillo Aquarium to check out the cool fossil finds that had just been discovered.

The week before, one of the directors of the aquarium was visiting the tidepools when he noticed these really cool fossil whale remains.

This is a shot of the rostrum. The two center lines that are close together are the upper jaw, while the bottom line is one half of the lower jaw.

Here's the neat part. This may be a cast of the inside of the brain case. The knob on the back end may be the foramen magnum.

Finally, a close shot of the fossilized bone. You can see the two layers of bone, the lighter compact bone (or cortical bone) and the darker, more porous spongy bone (or cancellous bone).

What a cool tidepool find!