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Penn Dixie sets fossil digging record

Posted at 4:31 PM, Aug 25, 2018
and last updated 2018-08-25 16:31:16-04

Saturday hundreds were digging for gold... historic gold. Penn Dixie hosted over 900 fossil diggers, 924 to be exact. While it's still unofficial, Executive Director Dr. Phil Stokes says the total number of diggers nearly doubled the previous world record. 

“It looked like everyone was completely engaged, I saw some really neat fossils that were turned in. Actually right now we have the state paleontologist who is verifying each of those fossils for the scientific merit," Stokes said. 

Diggers searched for remnants of animals that lived 380 million years prior, when Western New York was underwater according to Stokes. One of the most common fossils found were trilobites, a distant cousin to the horse shoe crab. 

Diggers were asked to turn in each fo their findings to the state paleontologist on site for examination. Once confirmed whether the findings were fossils or not, they could be returned to the diggers to take home. 

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