Renovation project at a Los Angeles high school uncovers more than 200 marine species dating back over 9 million years

Archaeologists dream of uncovering fossil sites that preserve evidence of life from distant eras. One of the field’s greatest goals is the opportunity to directly study and document species that once inhabited the Earth. Yet discoveries of this scale are rare.

That is why it is especially remarkable that high school students have had the chance to participate in one. The opportunity arose almost by accident during construction work beneath the campus of San Pedro High School in Los Angeles. Renovation projects began in 2022, and two years later the first fossils emerged: a saber-toothed salmon, coastal birds, sea turtles, and even a prehistoric megalodon.

Since then, researchers have identified more than 200 different species after uncovering bones from a wide variety of marine creatures. “I thought this stuff was something that never happens, especially around here. It only happens in textbooks,” student Taya Olson told KABC. Wayne Bischoff, Director of Cultural Resources at Envicom Corporation, told LAist that the site represents “an entire ecology looked like nine million years ago.”

Fossils millions of years old

The area was far from ordinary. Located on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, west of Long Beach, the campus sits atop two fossil deposits: one containing Miocene-era bones dating back approximately nine million years, and another containing Pleistocene-era shells that are about 120,000 years old. The discoveries have already sparked additional exploration throughout the region.

“There’s never been this type of density of fossils ever found at a site like this before in California,” Bischoff said. The findings further support the scientific theory that the area now occupied by Los Angeles was once submerged beneath the ocean. According to Envicom, the Miocene shells represent only the second recorded invertebrate fossil of that age discovered on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

The oldest fossils became trapped in diatomite, a rock formed from fossilized algae. Their presence points to a nutrient-rich marine environment that may have supported species such as dolphins and whales. According to Bischoff, the discovery of these fossils alongside coastal material strengthens the hypothesis that a prehistoric island may once have extended into what is now the Los Angeles coastline.

Ongoing work at the fossil sites is expected to provide researchers with an unprecedented view of the region’s distant past.

“It’s the entire ecosystem from an age that’s gone,” Bischoff said. “We have all this evidence to help future researchers put together what an entire ecology looked like nine million years ago. That’s really rare.”

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