1.2-million-year-old fish fossil discovered in Istanbul

A 1.2-million-year-old fish fossil was discovered in a piece of marble in İstanbul's Esenler district last week.

This fossilized fish in marble has been dated at 1.2 million years old [Credit: İHA, Abbas Ramazanoğlu]

Mustafa Çalışkan brought some marble from Bilecik province a year ago to sell in his retail shop. Recently, while reorganizing his shop, Çalışkan noticed a fish figure in one of the pieces of stone. Curious if the figure could be an ancient fossil, Çalışkan took the marble to İstanbul University's department of geological engineering for assessment. The university's analysis determined that it is, in fact, a 1.2-million-year-old fossil in the marble.

Çalışkan said the university wanted to keep the marble to display the fossil, but he refused. “I want to sell it because I'm in dire economic straits. I invite everyone to come and see my fossil at the shop. I've done some research and it has a value of around TL 100,000,” added Çalışkan.

Turkey is a rich country in terms of ancient fossils. In December 2012, the fossilized skull of a rhinoceros that lived in Turkey about 9 million years ago was found during a surface study conducted by a team of paleontologists in Central Anatolia near Ürgüp and is currently on display at a museum in Nevşehir.

The Kızılcahamam-Çamlıdere Geopark and Geotourism Project in Kızılcahamam, Ankara province, opened in 2010 and offers visitors a chance to view world history through geological formations. The park comprises 23 geosites featuring geological formations as old as 23 million years, a fossil forest and columnar basalt formations.

Source: Todays Zaman [February 18, 2013]