(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

BY EVAN BUSH

ANCHOR ANA COMPAIN-ROMERO

The fossilized remains of 80 whales -- discovered in the middle of the Chilean desert.

Now, the clock is ticking to save them.

Here’s Saint Louis’ KTVI.

“The bones have been preserved in sedimentary rock for 7 million years. The area they were found is about to be paved in during a construction project but scientists persuaded the government to preserve the fossils first. The Chilean government will make a museum to hold the fossils.”

Science Magazine reports the construction company which found the whales has granted a temporary reprieve on its road project to give scientists time to remove them and catalog the site.

“Facing a deadline sometime next month, the team has been working as quickly as possible to remove the fossils. ‘We’re pushing the limits for what we can do with [whole] fossils,’ [says paleobiologist Nick Pyenson, the curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.] ‘It’s really logistically challenging.’”

And scientists are using sophisticated technology to not only collect the fossils, but to also scan and model the graveyard.  A team from the Smithsonian’s 3D Digitization program went to Chile to create a record of the site where the whales were found.

Which could be important later because, as The International Business Times reports, this might be the biggest “whale graveyard” ever found -- and it’s not clear why so many are in the middle of the desert.

“According to experts, the recently discovered Chilean fossils outnumber previous finds of prehistoric whales elsewhere in Peru and Egypt. Researchers think there are probably hundreds of whale fossils in the area, waiting to be uncovered.”

So what’s to become of the fossils once they’re all removed from the highway construction zone? A writer for AOL has some insight on the Smithsonian’s hopes...

“Pyenson has said he hopes a museum will be build to show off the intact skeletons where they lie, similar to the way fossils are displayed at the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and Colorado.”