In Madrid? Yes. A team of researchers from the Complutense University of Madrid was in charge of identifying them. It happened in the Sierra Norte. The oldest marine fossils in Madrid were found there. Its antiquity dates back to the Middle Ordovician, approximately 460 million years ago. This makes them the oldest known so far in the Community of Madrid.
Madrid under the sea
Specifically, the remains were found in outcrops of Paleozoic slate located in the area of Patones and El Atazar. They belong to different groups of marine invertebrates. These include fossils of trilobites, brachiopods, mollusks and graptolites. They are preserved in very old marine rocks that are part of the geological foundation of the region.
As pointed out by the UCM in a statement, these rocks are largely hidden under more recent materials and are visible only in sectors of the Central System. They suffered intense processes of deformation and metamorphism throughout successive orogenies. That explains "the extraordinary rarity" of finding fossils in them. The research also reviews all the previous paleontological information available. There is a lot of data about the Paleozoic of the Sierra Norte of Madrid and Guadalajara. This provides new data on the marine fauna that inhabited this area when the Madrid territory was covered by ancient seas.
According to the authors, these are the oldest marine fossils in Madrid. Its antiquity is slightly later than some ichnites or fossil footprints attributed to marine arthropods. These were found around 1864. The engineer and geologist Casiano de Prado found them in Puebla de la Sierra. Since then they have not been the subject of detailed study again.
Researchers
The oldest marine fossils in Madrid appeared thanks to a multidisciplinary team. Among them, the paleontologist Sara Romero, from the Paleontology Area of the Faculty of Geological Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid. Also researchers from the Institute of Geosciences (CSIC-UCM). The results will be presented during the 80th scientific session of the Geological Society of Spain. This will be held on Friday. The results will be published in the scientific journal 'Geogaceta', along with the rest of the contributions presented at the meeting.
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