In this image provided by Coleman Fredricks, coal miners unearthed a mammoth tusk in May 2023 at the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota. The large electric excavator dug the tusk out of the earth and threw it into a truck, which then dumped the tusk. charge, revealing the defense. The North Dakota Geologic Survey later visited the mine and excavated more bones at the site, finding more than 20 mammoth bones, now wrapped in plastic for protection while paleontologists work to preserve them. Credit: Coleman Fredricks via AP
The first person to spot it was an excavator operator working at night, watching a white reflection as he scooped up a huge mound of dirt and deposited it into a dump truck.
Later, after the truck driver dumped the load, a bulldozer driver was ready to flatten the earth, but stopped to take a closer look when he too spotted this piece of white.
Only then did the miners realize they had unearthed something special: a 7-foot-long (2.1 meter) mammoth tusk that had been buried for thousands of years.
“We were very lucky, lucky to find what we found,” said David Straley, an executive with North American Coal, which owns the mine.
Miners unearthed the tusk in an old creek bed, about 40 feet deep, at the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota. The 45,000-acre (18,210-hectare) open-pit mine produces up to 16 million tons (14.5 million metric tons) of lignite per year.
After spotting the tusk, teams stopped digging in the area and called in experts, who estimated it was between 10,000 and 100,000 years old.
Jeff Person, a paleontologist with the North Dakota Geologic Survey, was among those who responded. He said he was surprised the mammoth tusk did not suffer more damage, given the enormous equipment used at the site.
“It’s miraculous that he came out virtually unscathed,” Person said.
North Dakota Geological Survey paleontologist Jeff Person examines mammoth bones wrapped in plastic in a drawer at the Geological Survey office in Bismarck, North Dakota, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023. Coal miners from the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota, unearthed a 7-year-old mammoth tusk in May 2023. Paleontologists called to the site later found more than 20 mammoth bones in total. Credit: AP Photo/Jack Dura
A subsequent excavation at the discovery site uncovered more bones. One person described it as a “net of finds,” totaling more than 20 bones, including a shoulder blade, ribs, tooth and parts of hips, but it is likely the most complete mammoth found in Dakota of the North, where it is much more common. dig up a bone, tooth or isolated piece of mammoth tusk.
“It’s not a lot of bones compared to the number in the skeleton, but it’s enough for us to know that it’s all associated, and it’s way more than we’ve ever found.” an animal together, so it really gave us a little bit of bone importance,” Person said.
Mammoths once roamed parts of Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Specimens have been found all over the United States and Canada, said Paul Ullmann, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of North Dakota.
The discovery of the mine is quite rare in North Dakota and the region because many remains of animals living during the last ice age were destroyed by glaciations and ice sheet movements, Ullmann said.
Other areas yielded more mammal remains, such as skeletal bone deposits in Texas and South Dakota. People have even found frozen carcasses in the permafrost of Canada and Siberia, he said.
Mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago in what is now North Dakota, according to the Geologic Survey. They were larger than today’s elephants and were covered in thick wool. Cave paintings dating back 13,000 years depict mammoths.
Ullmann calls mammoths “almost as much media superstar as dinosaurs,” citing the “Ice Age” film franchise.
This ivory tusk, weighing more than 50 pounds (22.6 kilograms), is considered fragile. It was wrapped in plastic so paleontologists could try to control the rate at which it dehydrated. Too quickly, the bone could break and be destroyed, Person said.
North Dakota Geological Survey paleontologist Jeff Person sits behind a 7-foot mammoth tusk, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023, at the Geological Survey office in Bismarck, North Dakota. Coal miners dug up the tusk in May 2023 at the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota. . Paleontologists later discovered more mammoth bones at the site. The tusk and other bones are wrapped in plastic for protection while paleontologists work to preserve them. Credit: AP Photo/Jack Dura
Other bones were also wrapped in plastic and placed in drawers. The bones will remain in the plastic for at least several months until scientists can find a way to safely release the water. Paleontologists will identify the mammoth species later, Person said.
The mining company plans to donate the bones to the state for educational purposes.
“Our goal is to give it to the kids,” Straley said.
North Dakota has a landscape ripe for bones and fossils, including dinosaurs. Perhaps the state’s best-known fossil is the Dakota, a mummified dinosaur with a duck-bill and fossilized skin, Ullmann said.
The state’s rich fossil record is largely due to the “low-elevation, lush, ecologically productive environments of the past,” Ullmann said.
North Dakota’s location adjacent to the Rocky Mountains puts it in the path of eroding sediments and rivers, which have buried animal remains for 80 million years or more, he said .
“It was a perfect scenario: We had really productive environments with lots of life, but we also had the perfect scenario, geologically, to bury the remains,” Ullmann said.
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