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Boy building sand castles finds ancient treasure worth keeping

By Jennifer Dittman, FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 24, 2003
Alex Sonson, 11, knew he had discovered something worth saving during his vacation in Mexico.

Yet convincing his mother, Mary, wasn't easy for Alex, who will enter the sixth grade at Haine Middle School this fall.

Alex, of Cranberry, discovered a million-year-old fossil that caught his eye while vacationing with his family on the Riviera Maya, Mexico, which is south of Cancun.

The other members of the Sonson family vacationing in Mexico included his father, Philip; a brother, Spencer, 9; and a sister, Brianna, 7.

"I was building sand castles when I saw it halfway on the ground. I thought it was a rock that I could use for my sand castle," Alex said. "Then I saw it was a shell. I washed it off. ... My mom said she thought it was a piece of cement."

His parents initially were so unimpressed by Alex's discovery that his mother made him carry his 2- or 3-pound treasure for the entire 12-hour plane ride back to Cranberry.

"He was adamant about bringing it home," Mary Sonson said.

After arriving home, Alex took the fossil to the Appalachian Rock Shop and Jewelry Emporium in Harmony, where Tom Metarko, verified that Alex had found a fossilized gastropod shell that was 1 million to 2 million years old. A gastropod is a large mollusk.

The fossil now holds a place of honor in Alex's room on a stand.

"I felt really happy about how old it was because my mom thought it was just a piece of cement," he said.


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