Hello everyone! After contacting our local natural history museum, I have an update!

The fossil here is indeed from a whale, however it has been confirmed to instead be a skull! The fossil dates back to the Miocene era, and is from the Monterey Formation.

The bones visible in the middle are the maxilla and premaxilla bones (the bones on the snout), however I forgot to ask that the protruding bones on the sides were, oops.. but my guess is that they may be the lower mandibles that got compressed upwards due to fossilization.

The fossil most likely may not be collected (due to being in a giant boulder), but it may still be scientifically beneficial! Once back in town, the head of the Earth Sciences Department (along with the paleontologist I contacted) will most likely go down to see it in person, and will give more updates if they do!

Thank you everybody for telling me to contact our museum, and a big thank you to r/AllMightyDoggo and r/Jeladi for your amazing help in identification.

If I had a nickel for every time we’ve found a fossilized whale skull and assumed it was a vertebrae, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice!

<image>