(AP) -- Officials don't know what killed thousands of tiny clams that washed up on a South Carolina beach, but they know the shells did stink up the place.
The Post and Courier of Charleston reported workers on Folly Beach spent Wednesday burying the shells of the tiny, fingernail sized clams in three-foot-deep trenches.
Officials say the Mulinia shells had blanketed part of the beach for a week.
Phil Maier with the Department of Natural Resources says officials haven't figured out what killed the clams, but he says it's unusual.
Maier says if low oxygen levels in the water had killed the clams, other species would have been affected. He says officials are testing the water.
Maier says there was a similar occurrence on St. Catherines Island in Georgia in 1993 and officials never figured out what happened.
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