Construction workers were surprised to make a prehistoric find that could be 2 million years old.
The glacial erratic rock was estimated to be 300,000 pounds and two million years old. It lies 30 feet below ground, and was unearthed on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014, at the Courtyard by Marriott construction site in Everett, Washington.
About 30 feet below the surface, construction workers in Everett, Washington, made an enormous find that harkens back to times of much colder weather.
While using an excavator on Nov. 13 at the site of a new Courtyard by Marriott hotel, construction workers made contact with something solid. After geotechnical engineers were able to analyze the object, they concluded that it was a glacial rock – glacial erratic – weighing some 300,000 pounds and roughly the size of an SUV.
The huge boulder, known as a glacial erratic, could be as old as two million years, though scientists would need to study the rock closer to get a better estimate for its age, the Daily Herald also said.
A glacial erratic is a piece of rock that doesn’t resemble other rocks in the area where it’s found, and they can be carried hundreds of miles by glacial ice. The largest glacial erratic ever discovered, the report adds, weighed 16,500 tons – exponentially heavier than the 150-ton rock discovered underground in Everett last week.
A decision on what will happen to the prehistoric rock hasn’t been made yet. Will the boulder be given to the city?
Perhaps they can extract it, polish it and then mount it as a monument to ice ages.