Accidental Discoveries Facts

A retired gardener borrowed a metal detector in 1992 to find a lost hammer in a Suffolk field. Instead, he uncovered 14,865 Roman coins and 200 pieces of ancient jewelry - the largest late Roman treasure hoard ever found in Britain, valued at £1.75 million. They found the hammer too. It's in the British Museum.

Fly Geyser looks like something from another planet, its mounds streaked bright red and green in the Nevada desert. Nobody designed it. In 1964, engineers drilling a geothermal test well left it uncapped, and scalding mineral water has erupted nonstop ever since. The rainbow colors come from algae that thrive in the hot mineral runoff, and the mound is still growing today.

Sue, the T. rex at Chicago's Field Museum, was found because of a flat tire. In 1990, a South Dakota fossil crew drove into town to fix it, but Sue Hendrickson stayed behind and walked her dog to cliffs the crew had not checked. Giant bones jutted from the rock above her, part of one of the most complete T. rex skeletons ever found. The skeleton still carries her name.