With a dig for mammoth remains that started in April, professors at University of Michigan found a large clue that will help with the research of the Morrison Lake Country Club mammoth.
What was discovered was the mammoth’s tusk, which will reveal the animal’s age.
“The tusk grows throughout life, and as it forms it forms a record of the animal’s history, from when it’s born to the day it died,” said Dr. Dan Fisher, professor of paleontology and curator of the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan. “We can see years, like tree rings in the tusk, and we can analyze the material even the material inside those tree rings to see what it ate, how healthy it was what the environment was like, so this is a huge source of information.”
The dusk was discovered on Sunday, when U of M Research Specialist Dr. Scott Beld discovered a portion of the tusk. During the time, he thought it was just a portion of a sizable bone, and didn’t discover its size until he tried to dig it up.
“Sunday, when we finished excavating the sight, we were digging down to about a centimeter of dirt over the tusk,” said Beld. “When I came out on Monday, I started to clear off some of the dirt on top and felt the tusk over there.”
During the dig, a large portion of the upper skull was found, another tooth that fit inside the skull. There were also bone fragments from the skull, ribs, vertebra and other small finds.
The remains lead Beld and Fisher to believe that there is only one mammoth at this location, and that early humans used the lake as a refrigerator to keep the meat from spoiling.
Source: Sentinel Standard
