Fla. teen stumbles upon mammoth tooth

yahoo ^ | Feb 20 | ap

[george76]

archaeologists say could be the biggest fossil find in Pinellas County in nearly a century...

The jaw and tooth weigh 65 pounds and are about a yard long. Sarti-Sweeney took the bones home and, after some online research with her older brother, determined the football-sized rock was actually the tooth of a long-extinct mammoth.

Paleontology and archaeology experts have confirmed the find, and recent digging at the site has turned up teeth and bones from a second mammoth, giant sloths, camels, turtles with shells up to 6-feet-long, saber-toothed cats and giant armadillos the size of Volkswagen Beetles.

Scientists believe the remains are between 10,000 and 100,000 years old.

"It's possible that it's an old river valley, (and) the animals got caught in the muck or the river washed all these animals down into one place at one time," he said. "We can get a better handle on it by analyzing the soil," said Richard Estabrook, director of USF's Florida Public Archaeology Network.

[SteveH]

This roughly parallels in a larger scale an experience I had a few months ago when I did a ground survey for historical artifacts at a creek bank site I was investigating. I found nothing that I considered of historical era interest there, but I happened to spot what appeared to be a cattle bone in the middle of the creek. When I pulled it out and washed the mud off it, I found out that it was fossilized. I took it to an expert who determined it to be an extinct camel scapula. In other words, I was looking for something old, but what I actually "stumbled over" was about two orders of magnitude older.

[Jaysun]

My view skips from post 3 to post 5. What's up?

Mine does too now. There was an "Ice Age" picture at post 4 that was about 3 screens wide and almost as tall.

[Jaysun]

Interesting, no post #4...

It used to be a gigantic "Ice Age" picture.

[tlb]

>>>Fla. teen stumbles upon mammoth tooth

Unless he seeks help from a good orthodontist he will probably do so again too.

[Berosus]

Is that a reference to the kind of people who live in Pinellas County? In the past, I affectionately referred to the place as "God's Waiting Room."

But now that I think of it, the county's densely populated, so I'm surprised anybody found a vacant lot to dig up a jawbone like that.

[george76]

It is always fun to find old stuff.

We never found a collection like this yet.

[null and void]

What I find interesting is, as Grizzled Bear noted, it just skips from 3 to 5 without the customary "Post # 4 removed by moderator"

I hope this is a simple error and not a new design feature. The simple dropping of replies without any flag makes it harder to follow the action.

[Cold Heart]

I went to the big city and met that same car dealer.

The article doesn't give a date for the find so we really don't know how long they have had time to study it. I'm guessing they are basing their guess on the time frames they have found such fossils in that location before.

My local small town car salesman is much better to deal with

[Cold Heart]

It's intersting how you can train your eyes and brain to find things.

I ride my horse along the beach at a pretty good clip while I scan the stones & shells for unique things. I do a good job at finding things.

I have picked out some 400 to 1000 year old stone tools in a
rock & stone filled wash out just by scanning and turning over a couple of rocks. Hundreds of people passed the same spot and saw nothing.

[george76]

Yes.

Many people walk by without looking carefully.

" It's intersting how you can train your eyes and brain to find things. "

[RDTF]

kewl

[Vicomte13]

Yeah, yeah. Nice find kid.
But this is taking away our attention from Anna Nicole Smith.

[Eaker]

How about posting the link only?

[SunkenCiv]

:')

[Grizzled Bear]

What I find interesting is, as Grizzled Bear noted, it just skips from 3 to 5 without the customary "Post # 4 removed by moderator"
___________________________________________________________

The moderator had to do it this way...because you can't handle the tooth!

<-- Running out of room to avoid getting smacked...

[null and void]

OH. MY. GOD!

[SunkenCiv]

Hmm. Nothin’.

[MHGinTN]

There is no post number 4 ... extinct?

[MHGinTN]

Thanx for posting that link (which lead to numerous other even more cogent links)! You’ve presented me with extensive reading to do, Fred. I happen to be a fan of Wal Thornhill though I’ve not followed all of his work recently. The electric universe model more closely fits with the new paradigm I’m working on. Again, thanx for the links.

[RightWhale]

The mammoths and sabertooth cats here are also found in muck, frozen muck dug up during gold mining operations. There is a lot of soft tissue left since they were evidently buried alive in the muck before it froze. Nothing like that has happened again around here in a long time except along the rivers where sometimes standing musk ox carcasses are uncovered by river erosion.