NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH--A sand restoration project at North Topsail Beach kicked up a 30,000,000 year old buried treasure.
"These particular critters right here only lived in the Oligocene time period which is 30 million years ago,” said Avocational Paleontologist Linda McCall.
Since March McCall has collected one ton of these fossils from a two mile stretch on North Topsail Beach.
"There's oysters, there's these cool looking things we call sea biscuits which are actually sea urchins, little tiny round ones with bumps which are also sea urchins, you get some barnacles, things like that,” said McCall.
Beachgoers originally thought these fossils were just rocks being dumped onto the beach, but McCall and a colleague knew they'd struck gold.
"She just showed up at Town Hall and was just like, "Do you know you guys have these fossils that are showing up on the beach,” said North Topsail Beach Assistant Town Manager Carin Faulkner.
McCall says for the first time Paleontologists are seeing incredibly pristine fossils still displaying color.
McCall says the fossils are so well preserved because a catastrophic event like a large storm killed them all at once and buried them.
"There was no way that we would ever know what they looked like in life. They don't have any living relatives today and now we know what these guys looked like and that is the coolest thing ever,” said McCall.
The fossils are still washing up on the beach. Beachgoers may not even realize they're walking amongst 30 million year old extinct organisms.
McCall plans to take the fossils to an international convention this Fall to debut the fossils to the science world.