Public Events --

Brownbag Lectures: An Update from the Snowmastodon Site, Snowmass Village, Colorado

Brownbag Lectures: An Update from the Snowmastodon Site, Snowmass Village, Colorado

• Location: ISM Research & Collections Center, Springfield
• Date: Monday, August 01, 2011, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

This special Brownbag Lecture will be presented by Dr. Jeff Pigati of the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado.

On October 14, 2010, construction crews working to expand the capacity of a reservoir near the town of Snowmass Village, Colorado unearthed several bones of a juvenile Columbian mammoth. The discovery set off a frenzy of excavation and recovery efforts in which members of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) uncovered more than 4800 bones in less than 3 months.  At least 20 different types of vertebrate fossils have been identified thus far, including dozens of mastodons, several mammoths, at least two species of bison (including a Bison antiquus skull with a 7-foot hornspan!), several Jefferson’s ground sloths (the first ever recorded in Colorado), and a host of other animals - deer, horse, camel, otters, muskrats, beavers, chipmunks, bats, rabbits, mice, salamanders, frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, and birds.  In addition to the fossils, the site is host to exceptionally well-preserved plants, insects, and aquatic invertebrates - beetle parts are iridescent, some plants are still green, and conifer cones are intact.

A multi-institutional team of scientists has been assembled to study the fauna, flora, and climate history of the Snowmass site in unprecedented detail. Several key research questions have emerged: (1) What does the Snowmastodon site, which is at 8874 feet above sea level, tell us about Pleistocene climate and biota at high elevations in the Ice Age Rockies? (2) What is the timespan represented by sediments at the site?  (3) How and when did vegetation and climate change in the past? (4) What information can we ascertain regarding the life histories of the site’s proboscideans (mammoths and mastodons)? And (5), is there any evidence for human activity at the site? 

One of our Brownbag Lectures

Weekly lectures held at the Museum's Research and Collections Center. Lectures are usually held during lunchtime on Wednesday. The RCC is located at 1011 E. Ash Street in Springfield. Access to the building is from 10 ½ Street (between Ash and Laurel Streets), where there is ample visitor parking in the west parking lot. For more information, please call 217-785-0037. Brown Bag Lectures are free and open to the public.

Also, if you want to be informed of upcoming lectures by email, you can sign up for the brownbag announcement list.