More than Turtle Soup

Check out this article that just came out in our local paper. I thought it was pretty amazing, so I thought I would share it:

Dublin--Truck driver Jay Rivers made an unusual discovery while headed west on Rte. 101 last Monday. After receiving an alarm from a very rough obstacle in the road, he pulled over and discovered that the turtle he had mistaken for a trash bag was dead and its shell had broken open. To his astonishment, he found that the inside of the shell was coated in a quarter of an inch of gold!

"I don't know how it happened," Rivers said. "It was foggy this morning so I didn't see it 'til it was too late. I knew by the jolt that it was more than just a bag of trash." Concerned, Rivers stopped at the Citgo gas station at Carr's Store to investigate the mysterious bump, located just east of the Morning Star Maple sap house.

The creature, a snapping turtle with a shell aprox. sixteen inches in diameter, was old and a little too large for its shell, so the pressure exerted by the eighteen wheeler on the shell broke its spine and killed it instantly. It has been pointed out that the gold layer probably contributed to its demise.

The presence of the gold itself has puzzled experts tremendously. Zoologist Kim Larsen believes that the gold could have been deposited in the soft lining of the inner shell.

"I estimate that this guy was about seventy years old," Larsen speculates. "And if he were exposed to a body of water that was infiltrated with tiny gold particles, it could have easily started to build up in his shell at a young age, instead of the normal addition of calcium and mineral enriched deposits."

Where this gold-diffused body of water is remains a mystery, but the most obvious possibility is the marsh right along Rte. 101 where the turtle was found. Ecologists and mineralogists alike are now conducting experiments to test the waters for gold deposits, and they're taking samples of water from all the surrounding areas as well. Since many of these reservoirs are fed by waters from Mt. Monadnock, many people are wondering if the mountain is the ultimate source of riches. Has Dublin struck gold? This and many other questions are what experts are endeavoring to answer.

By Kathleen Scott.

Well, I don't know about you, but I enjoyed that and thought it was very cool.

Skeptical? You have good reason to be.

Have a happy April Fools Day. :)