Cerro Ballena

Cerro Ballena (meaning "Whale Hill") is a fossiliferous locality of the Bahía Inglesa Formation, located in the Atacama Desert along the Pan-American Highway a few kilometers north of the port of Caldera, Chile. It has been dated back to the Late Miocene epoch, during the Neogene period. The locality was first noted in 1965 during military work and fully excavated and studied between 2011 and 2012, and is protected by law since the latter year. Cerro Ballena is extremely abundant in cetacean fossil skeletons, including over 40 individuals of adult and juvenile ages. This high concentration of cetacean skeletons has made Cerro Ballena well known, now considered a national treasure of Chile. Besides cetaceans the site does also contains fossils of pinnipeds (seals), sailfish, sharks, swordfish, aquatic sloths (not a group as such, but rather the genus Thalassocnus) and invertebrate trace fossils. The unusual concentration of cetacean remains and other marine vertebrates is explained to h

Elevation: 2416 m

Country: Chile

Explore topics:

Cerro Ballena

Related mountains in Chile