By Mike Dougherty

MANTUA TWP., N.J. (CBS) – More than 1,300 people searched for fossils at a massive dig site in South Jersey Saturday.

The area of Mantua Township where the dig took place was the ocean floor 65 million years ago.

“We have this amazing bone bed of fossils that has ancient sharks and turtles and crocodiles and even big sea monsters like a Mosasaur, which are as long as a school bus,” says world-renowned Drexel University Paleontologist Dr. Kenneth Lacovara.

Dr. Lacovara says this is a finders-keepers event. He hopes an ancient shark vertebrae the key to unlock a new world for an impressionable young mind.

“I know these kids are going to remember this moment for the rest of their lives. And some of them, maybe because of this, are going to go on to careers in science and engineering.”

Dr. Lacovara was also on site to show off the bones of a dinosaur he discovered in Argentina. It’s the largest known creature to walk the earth.

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