President Donald Trump's cutting of protections to public lands could stymie the discoveries of archaeological treasures hundreds of millions of years old, including the remains of dinosaurs, scientists say.
"I have nightmares about people strip-mining bentonite and all my fossils going away," Robin O'Keefe, a top palaeontologist at Marshall University told The Guardian.
"It'll be a different game [if public land island] developed into coalmines," palaeontologist Joseph Sertich said to the newspaper.
Trump is lessening the size of 10 national monuments such as Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah. Beginning Friday, private citizens and companies will be allowed to stake claims for hard rock mining in a process governed by the General Mining Law of 1872.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.