Science

Photos: New kind of prehistoric clam found in Beaufort

The rapidly thawing Arctic Ocean may be a new frontier, but some of the latest news from there concerns a clam that is believed to date back more than a million years.

Some bivalves retrieved from the ocean depths during a 2010 mapping mission in the Beaufort Sea turn out to be members of a species previously unknown to science, explains a study published Dec. 10 in the journal ZooKeys.

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, who were exploring the area aboard the Coast Guard icebreaking cutter Healy, found the clam shells in a core sample dug with a 4-inch-diameter pipe into the seafloor.

READ MORE: New discovery in Beaufort Sea is a very old clam

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