# Science Fun: Fossils of Caribbean rodents in the ISEM sedimentation room
Welcome to La Science s’aMuse, the science program co-produced by UM and Divergence-FM, which takes you on a cruise through the Muse laboratory archipelago. This week, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, paleontologist atISEM, and Philippe Münch, geologist at Géosciences Montpellier, tell us about the Caribbean 30 million years ago. In the second part of the program, Quentin Vautrin gives us a tour of the sediment room at ISEM.
For today's stopover, we invite you on a journey through space and time. Set sail for the Caribbean, with the helm set to -30 million years. The archipelago we are sailing through is populated by ghost islands, submerged long before this world became ours. These islands were home to ancient rodents, which our guests today have traced back to a single tooth.
A 32-million-year-old tooth found in Puerto Rico that belonged to a rodent from... South America! That's a swimming distance of several hundred kilometers... Don't believe it? And you're right.
Our two guests today explain in a recent study* published in Earth Science Review that the discovery of these fossils in Puerto Rico reveals the existence 30 million years ago of a string of islands, now disappeared, between the South American continent and the West Indies, which would have opened a passage for these mammals before they were finally engulfed. As you may have guessed, our destination today is Atlantis, and our guides are Pierre-Olivier Antoine, paleontologist atthe Institute of Evolutionary Sciences, and Philippe Münch, geologist at Géosciences Montpellier.
In the second part of the program, the En salle des machines (In the Engine Room) segment continues to dig deeper, but this time in the sediment room located in the basement of ISEM. Hundreds of bags and tons of sediment that paleontologists will sort through and sift through meticulously in the hope of discovering fossils, some no bigger than a pinhead—a truly painstaking task... These are known as the ISEM rocks, and Quentin Vautrin is here to tell us all about them.
To go further:
- Read the CNRS press release
- Read " On the trail of Caribbean rodents," in LUM magazine
- Read and watch Discovery of an animal dating back 120,000 years and now extinct in St. Barthelemy, France Info
Science is fun, you've got the ticket, let's go!
Production: Divergence FM/University of Montpellier
Host and interviewer: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview and reporting: Aline Périault
Editing: Bruno Bertrand
Director: Bruno Bertrand
Listen to the program “A LUM LA SCIENCE” on Divergence FM 93.9
