AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho—Unseasonably wet August weather helped expose fossilized remains of a 70,000-year-old mammoth in an irrigation drainage near American Falls Reservoir, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
Idaho Museum of Natural History paleontology staff removed a partial skull, now encased in plaster, and parts of a tusk on the weekend of Oct. 18, according to a press release. Growth rings on the tusk revealed the mammoth was 16 years old.
Museum staff said the finding is exciting because the jaw still contained teeth, which is a rarity among mammoth fossils. The Bureau of Reclamation has asked the public to photograph any possible fossil sightings but did not divulge the precise location where the fossils were found. The bureau pushed for the fossils to be extracted quickly, concerned rising water levels could wash them into the reservoir.
Source: www.capitalpress.com