Mammoths and mastodons and ground sloths, oh my! New Ice Age exhibit opens
Debbie Collins and Rachel Falk/Snowmass Tourism
If you glance through the viewfinders overlooking Ziegler Reservoir on Rim Trail in Snowmass Village this weekend, you might be shocked to see mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths roaming the land like they were 85,000 years ago.
Prehistoric creatures in the viewfinders are no coincidence — they’re meant to take visitors and locals alike back in time to when each called Snowmass home.
The Snowmass Ice Age Discovery is one of the world’s finest alpine Ice Age fossil finds, and thanks to a joint effort between Snowmass Tourism, the Aspen Science Center, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Snowmass Arts Advisory Board, and others, the discovery has been revived and is set to debut this weekend.
“These are the kind of experiences that can turn a kid on to science and make them want to do it for a lifetime,” said David Heil, president of the Aspen Science Center. “That’s one of the reasons we jumped on this opportunity.”
In 2010, Gould Construction Company, hired by Snowmass Water and Sanitation to excavate Ziegler Reservoir, was scraping out sediment in the reservoir when bulldozer driver Jesse Steele ran over a mammoth.
“The bones of the mammoth popped up out of the ground, and he jumped out and saw them behind the bulldozer,” said Dr. Ian Miller, who is currently Chief Science & Innovation Officer for National Geographic Society. (But he was the curator of paleontology and chair of the Earth Sciences department at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science at the time of the discovery.)
Steele picked up all the bones and gave them to the water and sanitation district offices, who halted all construction and put a tent over the discovery.
“People from Snowmass and Aspen came and saw the bones in the offices there, and that kicked the whole thing off,” Miller said.
According to him, it’s not uncommon for construction workers to uncover fossils while digging. He estimated that mammoth fossils are found in Colorado every one to two years.
“This one was particularly intriguing for us because this mammoth was the highest elevation mammoth ever found. You don’t usually get recent fossils preserved high in the mountains because everything’s eroding away,” he said.
Another unique aspect of this dig was the level of community involvement. Typically, scientific research is done in faraway places, and the public doesn’t know about it until it shows up in a National Geographic magazine, Heil said.
“It became a community phenomenon. Everybody wanted to be involved,” he said. “I don’t think this would have been possible if the whole valley hadn’t rallied to the occasion.”
The original excavation, run by Miller and a team from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, ultimately uncovered more than 6,000 bones. The excavation was done in two parts spanning over a period of about a year. The first part of the dig started after the discovery of the bones in 2010. After taking a break during the winter, digging resumed in May 2011.
“It ended up becoming a win-win-win (situation). The science got to be done by the scientists at the museum, water and sanitation got their reservoir, and then the community got to be a part of this remarkable scientific discovery and be there as it played out,” Miller said.
“At the end of that summer of digging, we had about 6,000 bones from seven species of megafauna, so mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, horses, camels, Ice Age deer, and Ice Age bison,” he said. “Alongside those, there were 48 species of small critters — everything from otters to beavers to frogs and fish.”
When people think of fossil digs, most of the time the mind immediately assumes the dig is for bones. However, that is not the case. Many digs, including the one in Snowmass, uncover so much more than just bones. The Ziegler Reservoir was home to a diverse array of plants and trees, some of which were preserved so well the leaves were green when they were excavated.
“One of the amazing things about the site is it preserves 85,000 years of Earth’s history at a single point on the planet right here in the Roaring Fork Valley,” said Miller. “As we dig into it, it’s like leafing back the pages of a book, and you’re reading back into time as you watch everything changed.”
A lot of knowledge about climate change can be gleaned from the site in Snowmass. According to Miller, there is evidence of periods that were as warm as they are today. To find evidence of climate change, scientists like him look at pollen. From a thimble-sized piece of mud, he said they get about 100,000 pollen grains.
“(Pollen) is a window into that ancient forest that lived alongside it. We see, doing all that pollen work all the way through the lake, that sometimes it’s beautiful, conifer forests surrounding the lake. Sometimes it’s sage, kind of dry around the lake. Sometimes it’s oak. Sometimes there’s nothing. It got cold enough that there were no plants around, and then the plants came back,” he said. “It becomes this unbelievable tape recorder of ancient climate change and it gives us, too, a prediction into what could happen in the future.”
Heil added that many of the species of plants discovered by Miller on the dig still exist on the mountains today, including aspens, oaks, and evergreens.
Ice Age Discovery
The Town of Snowmass Village made a commitment to re-energizing the discovery nine months ago and included the Aspen Science Center for help with developing content for the experiences.
“(Aspen Science Center) worked with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to develop a robust set of content and background material for the town, and they’ve turned that over to a group of designers and artists. So now, this weekend, we’re launching this whole new rebirth of the Ice Age Discovery,” said Heil.
The new Ice Age Discovery looks a bit different than you might expect. There’s no gallery or museum to visit. Instead, there are murals scattered throughout the village, panels on all of the cabs on Sky Cab (Skittles), and an interactive website with details about the discovery, the dig and the fossils. (snowmassiceage.com).
QR codes throughout the village and on the website allow for the community to experience a virtual Ice Age. By scanning the codes, viewers are able to see the flora and fauna of the ice age on their phones through virtual reality. There are also casts and specimens of the creatures for people to enjoy.
“The website itself is very robust,” said Heil. “It accommodates kids working on school projects, parents looking for things to do for their kids, even research scientists because we’ve referenced a number of the research papers that have come out of this project. I think the re-energizing is going to happen on multiple fronts.”
The newly-revived Snowmass Ice Age Discovery kicks off Friday, Aug. 11, at 6 p.m with a free scientific lecture from Miller and Heil, hosted by Snowmass Tourism at the Limelight Hotel Snowmass.
On Saturday, the community is invited to join Snowmass Village Town leaders for a celebration on The Rink in Snowmass Base Village. There will be activities such as completing the Ice Age Passport Walk, learning about the discovery through education stations from Aspen Science Center, and live music followed by a screening of Disney’s Ice Age, an on-theme movie choice.
“There’s no other ski resort and ski community anywhere in the world that has anything like this. It’s super cool to see the community excited about it and bringing it to life,” Miller said. “If you’re a visitor, you’re not only coming to a great community in a ski resort, but you’re also coming to a place where there’s an amazing scientific story that you’re never going to see at any other ski resort on the planet.”
To reach Audrey Ryan, email her at aryan@swiftcom.com.
