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Searching for Fossil Whales in Peru

Two researchers, looking for fossil whales, scan a rock formation in Peru's Pisco Basin.
(Nicholas D. Pyenson / Smithsonian Institution)

George Mason University professor Mark D. Uhen and Dr. Matthew Lewin of the University of California, San Francisco, survey rocks of the Paracas Formation, in the southern part of Peru's Pisco Basin. The two were part of a team that discovered South America's oldest fossil whales, to date. They published their findings in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of Paleontology