Rare fossil of sea reptile found on Alaska

[Still Waters]

Alaska scientists have discovered the fossil of a rare, prehistoric marine reptile that is likely the most complete remnant of the creature ever found in North America.

The nearly complete fossilized skeleton is of a thalattosaur, a long-tailed sea creature that plied warm, shallow waters in the early days of dinosaurs and became extinct at the end of the Triassic period some 200 million years ago.

The discovery of the fossil, found during an extreme low tide along the shore of the Tongass National Forest, was announced this week by the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

"We were just having our morning coffee out on the outcropping when somebody said, 'What's that?'" Jim Baichtal, the U.S. Forest Service's Tongass geologist and part of the discovery team, said on Thursday.

Geologists had been conducting field surveys at the site when the fossil was spotted.

Unlike most thalattosaur discoveries, which are fossilized remnants of individual bones and bone fragments, this specimen appeared to be a nearly full skeleton.

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