During the Tertiary parts of Svalbard were covered by marginal marine swamps. These thick mire layers were covered by sand and transformed during the last 55 millions of years into coal deposits. The coal mining company ‘Store Norske Spitsbergen Grubekompani A/S’ produces coal from these deposits. One of their mines is ‘gruve 7’ close to Longyearbyen.

Coincidence and presence of mind resulted in the discovery of the oldest footprints of a mammal in Svalbard in this mine.

On 20. December 2006 the two miners Håvard Dyrkollbotn and Kent Solberg used as usually an electrically operated machine to retrieve the coal about 3.5 km inside the mountain. However, in one area the sandstone layer above the coal was too irregular to use the machine and the two miners had to remove the coal manually. While doing so, they discovered a row of 14 oblong structures in the sandstone (Fig. 1). These knobs conspicuously looked like some kind of tracks and the miners decided to inform the management, who informed the palaeontologist Jørn Hurum from the Natural History Museum at the University in Oslo. He confirmed that these structures indeed were tracks – the first tracks in Svalbard from the Tertiary!

Figure 1. Footprints in the roof of the mine, observe the toes. (Picture: Charlotta Lüthje)

Detailed examination of the tracks revealed that the animal stepped with the hind foot on the print of the forefoot, resulting in a combined print of both feet. The print of the hind foot is twice as large as the forefoot and each foot has clearly five toes. According to J. Hurum these features suggest that it was a herbivorous Pantodont that has been walking here. Pantodonts were one of the first large herbivorous mammals and are well known from North America for this time period (Fig. 2).

Four of the prints have been removed from the mine and the trackway will now be scientifically described by an international group of scientists. These findings clearly set focus on the need to further investigate migration routes of large mammals from Northern America towards Svalbard during this time period.

(Source: Jørn Hurum)

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Figure 2. Reconstruction of some pantodonts from the Palaeocene in North America (from .Simons 1960). Coryphodon. B. Barylambda. C. Titanoides primaevus. D. Caenolambda. E. Pantolambda cavirictus. E. Pantolambda bathmodon.