The Ocean Now Have A Fossil Named After Them, Tease New Music

Throughout the years The Ocean have themed their expansive conceptual albums around some of the more notable developmental periods of the earth and the philosophical outlook and religious beliefs of its inhabitants. Their new album “Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic” will continue to explore such themes, in part focusing on a period of time when dinosaurs and reptiles walked the planet over hundreds of millions of years ago.

For a band as steeped in paleontological themes and history as they are, it seems fitting that they now have a fossil named after them. The band announced that newly bestowed honor as such:

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‘Ophiacantha oceani’, a new brittle star fossil discovered by palaeontologists Dr. Lea Numberger and Dr. Ben Thuy at the Natural History Museum of Luxembourg was named after Berlin progressive metal band The Ocean to celebrate their palaeontology-inspired music.

“Musicians who so skillfully combine arts and science, composing albums like ‘Precambrian’ (with songs named after the periods of the Precambrian), ‘Pelagial’ (with songs named after the bathymetric subdivisions of the water column) and ‘Phanerozoic’ as well as the song ‘Turritopsis dohrnii’ referring to the immortal jellyfish from the Mediterranean, are more than deserving of being immortalized in the fossil record.“
comments Dr. Ben THUY,
Natural History Museum Luxembourg
Palaeontology – Research & Collections Curator.

The abstract states that “Identifiable remains of large deep-sea invertebrates are exceedingly rare in the fossil record. Thus, every new discovery adds to a better understanding of ancient deep-sea environments based on direct fossil evidence.“

The fossil was discovered in 2.6-million-year-old deep-sea sediments of the Mediterranean but its closest living relative is from the Caribbean. Was it the victim of a yet undetected deep-sea extinction event?

Access the original publication in scientific journal Zootaxa: https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4820.1.2
Also there’s a some NEW MUSIC in this video Get ready for Friday”