© Paul Valentich-Scott
New species of bivalve mollusk was recently described and named Wallerconcha sarae.
In the depths of the Arctic Ocean, buried deep in the sediment, an ancient creature waited for over a million years to be discovered. Paul Valentich-Scott, from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (California), and three scientists from the United States Geological Survey (USGS, Menlo Park, California), Charles L. Powell, Brian D. Edwards, and Thomas D. Lorenson were up to the challenge.
Each with different expertise, they were able to collect, analyze, and identify a new genus and new species of bivalve mollusk.
The path to discovery is seldom simple or easy. This discovery is no exception. Brian Edwards was the chief scientist on a joint US-Canadian ice breaker expedition aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter
Healy in the summer of 2010.
The primary purpose of the expedition was to map the Arctic seafloor and the sediments beneath. Dr. Edwards took deep sediment core samples to further understand the geology of the region including the unusual seafloor mound where these samples were collected. In several of these cores he uncovered bivalve seashells buried nearly 15 feet (4.5 m) below the seafloor surface.
Upon returning to his USGS laboratory in Menlo Park, California, Brian worked with Tom Lorenson on sampling the cores and extracting the shells. The recovered shells were then taken to USGS paleontologist Chuck Powell, for identification. While Chuck was able to ascertain the higher level classification of the clam shells (Family Thyasiridae), he was unable to determine the genus or
species. Chuck contacted Paul Valentich-Scott, a clam specialist from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in California.
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