Remains of recently-discovered mammoth are heading to Tarleton State University.
TSU Media Relations
Special to Beneath the Surface News
The remains of a long-extinct mammoth will be relocated to Tarleton State University after being discovered in Central Texas this summer.
Two campers originally found a portion of a fossil they thought resembled dinosaur bones, sparking them to contact park rangers.
The location of the find is being kept under wraps to allow for excavation.
"What I saw when I got here was about four to five inches of tusk," said Kris Juntunen, Tarleton instructor of geosciences, who traveled to the site to confirm the find.
"It was pretty clear it was a mammoth."
In what is believed to be a first for the university, Tarleton students are participating in the dig.
The university’s geosciences program along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Waco Mammoth National Monument are teaming up to remove the remaining fossils from the site.
“The plan is to bring them to Tarleton State, and they’ll become part of the teaching collection,” Juntunen said.
Experts have determined the fossils, including what are suspected to be part of a skull, a piece of an arm bone and spinal bones, are of a 40-year-old male Columbian mammoth which weighed around 10 tons and was approximately 13 feet tall.
The prehistoric mammals roamed across present-day Texas thousands of years ago.
Comments