In the SCANTOGO quarry a new set of fossils made up of invertebrates (gastropods, nautiluses...) and sea turtle remains have been discovered. This set now makes it possible to confirm the presence of a sea at the latitude of Tabligbo 57 MA ago.

Conducting excavations for long days under the blazing sun in the SCANTOGO quarry, the engineer geologist and paleontologist Lucien Amoudji and his colleagues Michel Botcho, Fernand Houedjakou and Hyacinthe Agbossoumonde, all geologists and trainees at SCANTOGO, all of them geologists and trainees at SCANTOGO, discovered a humerus (foot bone) of a turtle that springs from the limestones.

Since this specimen is caught in hardened sediments that will take time to be removed, the researchers used shovels and pickaxes to clear the sediments all around.

At the end they uncover an incomplete turtle skeleton measuring 1.7 m long by 0.8 m wide. The fossil unearthed here may be the largest and most complete tortoise of this age ever found in West Africa.

After exposing it and before extracting it, the researchers made a plaster shell that will be used to protect the bones during the expedition to a study laboratory.

Apart from the vertebrate remains found in these limestones, there are also invertebrates made up of internal gastropod mussels (snails) and bivalves in the majority, as well as crabs and nautiluses.

All this new material constitutes an important natural heritage of Togo that must be studied and preserved.

Why study and preserve this heritage?

Fossils tell scientists what types of plants and animals lived on Earth and where they lived. So they are important in: The simple fact of obtaining fossils is already a very important event for science, since the remains are usually disintegrated. Fossil studies are indispensable for geology because they provide information about specific periods in the planet's history. The quantity of fossils recovered and studied over the centuries served as a basis for the formulation of evolutionary theories.

From the reconstruction of ecosystems where fossil remains have been found, the climatic conditions of a region can be revealed.

In addition, the limestone and phosphate outcrops where these fossils are discovered (often linked to mining) are set to disappear, since these deposits have a lifespan. If nothing is done in 10 to 30 years we will have no memory of this rich biodiversity that preceded us 57 MA ago.

Then, we are fortunate to have very rich sources of information. We must therefore take advantage of these open careers to safeguard this heritage and make it a model of valorization (collection and exhibition hall, development of educational kits for schools and universities in Togo...) in order to become a reference in the sub-region.