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Carrying a wrapped fossil block down the slope past a colleague seated with a bucket

Tjörnes

Pliocene Right Whale Fossil from Tjörnes, Iceland

July 2011

The Tjörnes Formation in northeastern Iceland contains the island’s only substantial pre-Quaternary marine sedimentary exposure. Although the formation is known for its rich fossil mollusc record, vertebrate fossils had rarely been documented there.

In July 2011, Dr. Jakob Vinther discovered a partial skull of a large right whale weathering out of a cliff on the western edge of the Tjörnes Peninsula. A Yale Peabody Museum field crew subsequently excavated the fossil.

The specimen, catalogued as IMNH 9598, was found in situ in the middle of the Mactra Zone. It dates to the Pliocene, approximately 4.63 to 3.4 million years ago. The 2017 study identified it as the first whale fossil recovered in situ from the Pliocene Tjörnes Formation and the oldest marine vertebrate fossil then known from Iceland.

IMNH 9598 consists of an isolated right squamosal, a bone from the skull’s temporal region. Its anatomical features identify it as a member of Balaenidae, the family that includes right whales and bowhead whales. Researchers assigned the specimen to cf. Eubalaena, indicating a probable but not definitive relationship to the right whale genus Eubalaena.

The fossil was weathering out of a cliff approximately 7 meters above sea level. To reach it safely, the crew rappelled from a fixed point approximately 30 meters above the specimen. Excavation took roughly two weeks. A pulley system was then used to lower the fossil to sea level before it was transported to the Yale Peabody Museum for preparation.

In the 2017 scientific description, IMNH 9598 was the northernmost Pliocene balaenid then known. Its occurrence also supported the possibility that right whales and bowhead whales occupied broadly overlapping latitudinal ranges during the Pliocene, unlike the more separated distributions of their living counterparts.

Field Documentation

Amanda Fornal assisted the field team and photographed and filmed the excavation. The project produced the documentary short Whale Fossil from the Pliocene of Iceland.

Watch the documentary short

Scientific Publication

The fossil was formally described in 2017 in Palaeontology:

Daniel J. Field et al. “The Oldest Marine Vertebrate Fossil from the Volcanic Island of Iceland: A Partial Right Whale Skull from the High Latitude Pliocene Tjörnes Formation.” Palaeontology 60(2): 141–148. DOI: 10.1111/pala.12275.

Expedition Support

The expedition received support from a National Geographic Society Young Explorer’s Grant and a Yale Field Ecology Pilot Grant.

Broken fragments with porous, honeycombed interiors piled on dark excavated soil
Thin, flaggy sedimentary beds stacked across a crumbling cliff face
Two people in rain gear on a wet scree slope, one clipped to a red safety rope
A roped field worker in a yellow jacket squeezing liquid from a small white bottle onto steep shale
Two crew members in helmets and purple gloves plaster-wrapping a block on the roped cliff face
Crew scrambling across a shale slope above a plaster-wrapped block covered with green sheeting
Three roped crew in bright rain suits digging into a dark, muddy slope
Handing strips of plaster bandage down to a colleague working at the excavation
Layered sea cliffs curving around a blue bay, with a red-roofed shed at the shoreline
Three excavators crouched over the dig, ropes strung across the loose slope
Crew working at a narrow rock outcrop partway up a long slope, gear stacked beside them
A helmeted crew member in orange bib pants holding a rope on the scree slope
Coiling a long rope on the grassy hillside above the excavation
Throwing a rope down the slope, its loops caught mid-air in low evening light
Tiny figures at the dig site on a vast layered hillside streaked with flowering lupines
Two crew resting on a ledge beside a white plaster-wrapped block, ropes running down the cliff
Three roped crew members chipping around a foil-wrapped specimen on a cliff ledge
One worker passing a tool to another across the fixed ropes on an eroded slope
Two excavators chiselling around a pale fossil exposed in the rock
Gloved hands driving a chisel with a rock hammer beside a plastered block
Crew of three working the rock face around a white plaster jacket
Shell-rich sedimentary layer in the cliff, packed with pale fossil shell fragments
Green-jacketed worker levering beside the plastered block as another leans in to inspect it
Carrying a wrapped fossil block down the slope past a colleague seated with a bucket
Lone worker in orange coveralls sitting with a bucket at the excavation
Applying plaster bandages and brushwork to the jacketed fossil on the cliff
Mixing plaster in a bucket on the bare slope, three roped crew leaning in
Team standing on the slope below a foil-wrapped bundle and gear stashed on a ledge
Hauling the large plaster-jacketed block across the cliff face on ropes
Orange tarpaulin and purple straps rigged over the specimen in a cliff niche
Rock slab cradled in an orange tarpaulin sling, rigged with ropes for lowering
Purple lifting straps cinched around a rock wrapped in orange tarpaulin
Dark grey rock exposed in a layered tan sea cliff, a rope trailing down at the edge
Five-person field crew posed around the strapped fossil block at the foot of the cliff
Two crew members cinching purple straps around the dark fossil block on the scree
Brushing plaster-soaked strips onto the fossil block, climbing helmets on
Field worker wringing out a plaster bandage beside the half-jacketed fossil
Three crew laying wet plaster and burlap over the black fossil-bearing rock
Silver foil sheeting lifted clear of the finished plaster jacket on its orange tarp
Wooden splint pressed into the wet plaster jacket while two others steady it
Finished plaster jacket braced with wooden struts, resting on an orange tarp below the cliff
Jacketed fossil block loaded into the back of an SUV, two men at the open tailgate
Man cleaning the fossil block on a pallet in a collections storeroom lined with wooden crates
White plaster jacket drying on a wooden pallet beside a plaster-crusted bucket
Thinly bedded shale and sandstone layers of the fossil-bearing cliff, grass along the top
Layered coastal cliffs above a calm blue bay, with a red-roofed house and jetty below

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