50-million year-old nummulite exhibited
DİYARBAKIR – Anadolu Agency
A recently discovered 50-million-year-old nummulite, a large lens-shaped single-celled marine organism (foraminifera), was put on display at a museum in the southeastern province Diyarbakır.
The fossil was exhibited at the Diyarbakır Zoology Museum, which features around 2,000 endemic animals including a hermit ibis, giant reptile and leopard carp.
The nummulite was found by Büşra Bektaş, a molecular biology student at Dicle University, during a family picnic in Siirt, another southeastern province.
The term “nummulite” means “coin” in Latin.
“Many areas including Anatolia were underwater previously. When Anatolia [peninsula] rose, fossils appeared,” Ali Satar, a zoology professor at Dicle University, told Anadolu Agency.
“These areas, where fossils exist, could not be able to be searched due to terror incidents. When we do a search in the area, we will find many fossils,” Satar added.
Bektaş said she was excited with the finding.
“There are many such things there. I want there to be researched. Because those areas were underwater before. Existence of such organisms in those areas makes me excited,” she said.
