EPOD - a service of USRA
The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory
captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The
community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and
relevant links.
The Huntington Mammoth
January 27, 2021
Mammoth08c_2nov17
Photographer: Ray Boren
Summary Author: Ray Boren
Likely among the last of its nearly extinct species, somehow the
elephantine creature seen reconstructed above had found refuge at
an unusually high elevation, for a primarily plains-oriented
grassland animal — about 9,600 feet (2,926 m) on central Utah’s
Wasatch Plateau. And there, in a time of climate change at the end
of Earth’s Pleistocene ice age — a devastating juncture for
North America’s megafauna — the Huntington Mammoth, a grizzled
bull perhaps 60 to 65 years old, died in a bog. Contributing to its
death were old age, deforming arthritis and malnutrition, researchers
say. The cold muck helped refrigerate and preserve the remains. About
10,500 years later (as determined by radiocarbon dating), in the
summer of 1988, a bulldozer operator and crew working at the site of
the Huntington Dam uncovered a massive humerus (a leg bone) and
part of a tusk. More discoveries were to come.
Today this Columbian mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi), a relative of
modern elephants and a contemporary of the mastodon, is considered
a morphological exemplar of its vanished species. During subsequent
excavation and recovery, a remarkable 95 percent of its skeleton,
including the skull and right down to little toe bones, was retrieved.
Also found were cells preserving its DNA and examples of what the
creature last ate, including grasses, sedges and twigs. The fragile
bones are preserved and monitored in climate-controlled storage at the
Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum (originally part
of the College of Eastern Utah) in Price.
IMAGE22 Mounted life-size cast replicas of the well-preserved
Huntington Mammoth’s skeleton, featuring the species’ upwardly
curved tusks, awe visitors in Price and at other museums near and
far, as illustrated in the first photograph here, taken on Nov. 2,
2017, inside the Fairview Museum of History and Art. The museum is
in Utah’s Sanpete Valley, below the discovery location. The actual
excavation site is just beyond and to the left of the trees shown in
the inset photo, taken on July 19, 2014, below the Huntington Dam and
its reservoir. Illustrated informational displays there describe the
mammoth’s life, death, rediscovery and significance.
Photo Details: Top - Camera: NIKON D3200; Exposure Time: 0.013s (1/80);
Aperture: ƒ/9.0; ISO equivalent: 400; Focal Length (35mm): 28. Inset -
same except: Exposure Time: 0.0020s (1/500); Aperture: ƒ/11.0; ISO
equivalent: 400; Focal Length (35mm): 27
* Mammoth Discovery Site, Utah: 39.58201, -111.24731
Related EPODs
The Huntington Mammoth Necropolis of Pantalica Mayan
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More...
History Links
* Paleoclimatology Data
* USGS: Age of the Earth
* What is Geologic Time?
* GSA Geologic Time Scale
* Earth Facts
* Earth History Courses
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Space Research Association.
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