Construction Workers Dug Up 45 (Fossilized) Bodies in Chile - Nick Pyenson

Ever see four construction workers standing around a hole supervising, while one worker with a shovel appears to be doing all the work, and wonder what they're doing? It's possible that they've dug up 45 skeletons and they're not sure what to do. In the case of a construction company in Chile's Atacama Desert, they called in National Geographic grantee and Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at the Smithsonian Institute Nick Pyenson. He explains that what is now the world's driest desert was once seafloor and is home to a mass grave of extinct sea life, which he compares to a 2-to-7 million-year-old "murder mystery."