Slide may contain mastodon skeleton

HAGERMAN, Idaho – A landslide last January near Bell Rapids may lead to a major fossil discovery in south-central Idaho – the complete skeleton of a mastodon.

The Nelson Slide in the Hagerman Fossil Bed National Monument uncovered a mastodon tusk. National Park Service hydro-geologist Neal Farmer hopes further excavation will uncover the rest of the ancient mammal, similar to Ice Age mammoths.

“One of the most important parts of a fossil is the head because it can provide identification information and also the age,” Farmer said.

“Since we have a tusk, which connects directly to the head, I am hopeful there is a head in the hillside.”

Farmer and Brock Dille, a University of Idaho graduate student, were conducting field work on the origin of slides in the most slide-prone area of the state when they discovered the tusk with vegetation roots embedded in it.

Phil Gensler, the paleontologist at the national monument, said the find is worth further investigation even though the initial pictures reflect what is typically found in the Hagerman area, which is a major fossil deposit in North America where scientists from the Smithsonian Institution found more than a dozen zebra-like horse fossils in the 1930s.

“These are bigger chunks than we usually find,” Gensler said.

“But when those animals died, their tusks often slid right out of the skull and moved around. We have hit 105 different fossil localities on the monument this year.”

There are about 600 total fossil sites documented within the monument boundaries.

As many as 5,000 fossils are collected each year ranging from simple bones to complete skeletons, Gensler said.