PHOTOS: ETSU paleontologists find cluster of mastodon specimens at Gray Fossil Site
http://wjhl.com/2016/07/27/photos-etsu-paleontologists-find-cluster-of-mastodon-specimens-at-gray-fossil-site/?utm_content=buffer8eebb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=bufferJOHNSON CITY, TN – East Tennessee State University paleontologists were thrilled when they wrapped up last year’s digging season at the Gray Fossil Site with the discovery of a mastodon. More excitement abounds this year, as even more of the gigantic creatures have been located.
When the early part of the 2015 digging season was relatively uneventful, scientists turned their attention to the original area where Tennessee Department of Transportation workers found ivory during a roadwork project in 2001, which led to the establishment of the Gray Fossil Site.
“Not only did we find exactly where they’d hit ivory, but they’d hit an intact piece of really long tusk,” said Dr. Steven Wallace, a professor in the ETSU Department of Geosciences. “That led back to a skull, which led back to part of the spinal column, and it just kept going. What’s neat is the teeth look a lot like mastodon, but the jaws look a lot like a shovel-tusked elephant, so it’s this weird, intermediate, transitional thing. We’re not really sure what it is, so when we say ‘mastodon’ or ‘elephant,’ we use those terms loosely.”
Workers dug a large hole around the original specimen and created the largest jacket – a protective covering used for moving sections of material from the field to the lab – in the history of the Gray site. When they expanded the dig to roll the jacket over, they ran into the teeth of another individual.
“As we started working again this spring, we ran into additional pieces of ivory and additional sets of teeth, and right now, I think we’re up to at least three, and maybe four, individuals,” Wallace said. “We’re finding fairly large sections of ivory in different portions where we’re digging, so there definitely is a cluster of ‘elephants’ or ‘mastodons’ in this one spot. It’s interesting to think that we’ve dug there for 15 years and all we’ve found are scraps, and now all at once, we’re finding this pile.”
Wallace explained that previous finds at the site – from tapirs to turtles and frogs – have supported the assumption that the site formed through day-to-day activities at a Miocene Era (4.5-7 million years ago) watering hole. This discovery of the large mammals, though, could tell a more dramatic story than that of many of the other animals.
“It was just a watering hole,” he said, “but the fact that all these elephants are clustered in one spot does make you wonder – did something different happen there? Did they get in and get stuck? Maybe they were so big they couldn’t get out, and they were indeed trapped. It could’ve been that a wall collapsed along the side of the actual pond, and they slid in with it, because there are a lot of boulders in with them.
“It’s hard to tell right now, and until we get them all out, we’re not going to know for sure. It’s going to be an interesting story, but it’s going to take us years to dig all of this out.”
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