Day 5 - What is happening at The Mammoth Site?

Sep 20, 2019

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Day 5 - What is happening at The Mammoth Site?Today, I did not make it out to the cave, but I did stick around The Mammoth Site! There is a lot happening here too! For about every hour of field work there is anywhere between 10 and a 100 hours of lab and curation work!!
The Mammoth Site volunteers are actively screenwashing all of the sediments removed from the cave! They are looking for those vital small fossils!
 
Screenwashing sediments
 
Sediments out to dry! 
 
Screens are emptied into plastic bags for sorting
 
Plastic bags of sediment are looked at under a microscope and fossils are removed
 
Everything is cataloged and organized
 
Just some of the backlog of sediments needing to be picked for fossils from the 2018 season

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About This Project

Uncovering a new era of climate change during the Ice Age of the Black Hills

The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, SD

Mammoth Site scientists, partners, and volunteers are on a mission to understand climate change in the Black Hills during the latest Ice Age. To accomplish this, we are working together to rappel into and excavate a remote cave in the Black Hills of SD. Rapid deposition of sediments in this cave covered the remains of many different animals. These exciting new discoveries have provided us with snapshots of what the climate and environment was like thousands of years ago.