10-year-old trips over a 1.2 million-year-old Tusk fossil
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Thursday, July 20, 2017 08:12 AM EDT | Updated: Thursday, July 20, 2017 08:24 AM EDT
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A boy’s misstep on a family hike in New Mexico has given the world a prehistoric wonder.
Ten-year-old Jude Sparks was on a desert hike in Las Cruces in November when he tripped over what turned out to be the fossilized tusk of a 1.2 million-year-old elephant-like creature, called a stegomastodon.
The family contacted New Mexico State University professor Peter Houde, and he and a team from the university spent a week digging up the skull in May after getting permission from the landowner.
Houde estimates the entire skull ways about a ton.
He expects the university to put the skull on exhibit after it’s studied and reconstructed, which could take years.
A paleontologist works to discover a unique fossil mandible of a 90 million-year-old large marine reptile found recently in a troglodyte private cave, on May 4, 2017 at the natural sciences museum in Angers, western France. (LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images)
NMSU experts dig up Las Cruces boy’s million-year-old fossil find | Article | NMSU News Center
10-year-old trips over a 1.2 million-year-old Tusk fossil | World | News | Toron
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Thursday, July 20, 2017 08:12 AM EDT | Updated: Thursday, July 20, 2017 08:24 AM EDT
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A boy’s misstep on a family hike in New Mexico has given the world a prehistoric wonder.
Ten-year-old Jude Sparks was on a desert hike in Las Cruces in November when he tripped over what turned out to be the fossilized tusk of a 1.2 million-year-old elephant-like creature, called a stegomastodon.
The family contacted New Mexico State University professor Peter Houde, and he and a team from the university spent a week digging up the skull in May after getting permission from the landowner.
Houde estimates the entire skull ways about a ton.
He expects the university to put the skull on exhibit after it’s studied and reconstructed, which could take years.
A paleontologist works to discover a unique fossil mandible of a 90 million-year-old large marine reptile found recently in a troglodyte private cave, on May 4, 2017 at the natural sciences museum in Angers, western France. (LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images)
NMSU experts dig up Las Cruces boy’s million-year-old fossil find | Article | NMSU News Center
10-year-old trips over a 1.2 million-year-old Tusk fossil | World | News | Toron
