# Science Is Fun: Fossils of Caribbean rodents at the ISEM sedimentation hall
Welcome to *La Science s’aMuse*, the science show co-produced by UM and Divergence-FM, which takes you on a journey through the Muse laboratory archipelago. This week, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, a paleontologist atISEM, and Philippe Münch, a geologist at Géosciences Montpellier, tell us about the Caribbean 30 million years ago. In the second half of the show, 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. We’re heading to the Caribbean, setting our course for 30 million years ago. The archipelago we’re sailing through is dotted with ghost islands, submerged long before this world became our own. Islands that were home to ancient rodents, whose traces 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 chain of islands—now vanished—between the South American continent and the Caribbean, which would have provided a passage for these mammals before they were eventually submerged. As you’ve probably guessed… our destination today is Atlantis, and our guides are Pierre-Olivier Antoine, a paleontologist atthe Institute of Evolutionary Sciences, and Philippe Münch, a geologist at Géosciences Montpellier.
In the second half of the program, the “In the Engine Room ” segment continues its exploration, 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 meticulously in the hope of discovering fossils sometimes no bigger than a pinhead—truly painstaking work… These are known as the Isem rocks, and Quentin Vautrin is here to introduce them to us.
For more information:
- Read the CNRS press release
- Read " In the Footsteps of Caribbean Rodents" in LUM magazine
- Read and watch : Discovery of a now-extinct animal dating back 120,000 years in Saint-Barthélemy, 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
Tune in to the show “A LUM LA SCIENCE” on Divergence FM 93.9
