A 90-million-year-old fossilized turtle was discovered in southern New Mexico by a man taking a hike near the town of Truth or Consequence.

Jeff Dornbusch, a volunteer with the local museum, found the fossils a decade ago and thought it was just a pile of light gray stones along the dirty brown trail. The "stones," however, looked a bit different as he inspected the turtle fossil dating back to the dinosaur era.

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He came back in 2012 to the same hiking trail along with a team of paleontologists to conduct an investigation.

Paleontologists confirmed the turtle fossil belongs to the genus Adocus from the Cretaceous Period 146 to 65 million years ago.

The ground from which the fossilized fragments was found helped researchers determine which era the turtle belonged to. The fragment had a chunk of dirt from stratum known as the Crevasse Canyon formation.

Tom Suazo, fossil preparer for the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, said the fossilized turtle's age can be estimated because of the surrounding dirt.

"Basically, what this is a swampy, near-shore environment," he said.

Suazo and his colleagues are hoping to find more of the turtle aside from its shell and spine. They plastered a large portion of the dirt to research further via controlled setting.

James Renn, a scientist from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, hopes the ancient turtle will be part of the museum.

Tagsturtle, 90 Million-Year-Old Turtle, Adocus genus, Cretaceous, ancient turtle, New Mexico