Reposted from:
http://www.physorg.com/news108387881.html

Searching for a different kind of riches in the ground, an oil company made a priceless find it never expected.

Working in west-central Alberta, the now defunct Cequel Energy Inc. company thrust a 7.5-centimetre-wide drill more than 1,300 metres into the ground. When the tube pulled up a sample of earth, it revealed a 96-million-year-old fish fossil neatly encircled in the core sample - only the very tip of the fish's snout and tail were cut off by the drill.

"It was incredibly lucky. Sometimes in a core sample you'll find a bone or parts of a bone, but I can't ever remember finding a whole, intact fossil. It's really quite amazing," said Alison Murray, a paleontologist at the University of Alberta.

Not only were the circumstances of the discovery amazing, Murray added, but the fossil represents a new genus of fish. Found just south of Grande Prairie, in an area known as the Dunvegan Formation, Tycheroichthys dunveganensis (meaning lucky fish of the Dunvegan) belongs to an extinct group of fishes, the Paraclupeidae, which are related to the modern-day herrings. It is the first time this group, which is known to have existed in areas around Lebanon and Brazil, has been found in Canada.

"This fish is what we call a list type. It's a single specimen, the only one of its kind, and that makes it priceless," said Murray, adding that she wouldn't put a price value on the specimen even if she had to, as it is illegal to sell fossils found in Alberta.