Part of prehistoric beast being unearthed near Gardnerville

Tom Gardner

Saturday, April 22, 2000 | 4:46 a.m.

GARDNERVILLE, Nev. - Researchers and students chipped and brushed Saturday to unearth fossilized remains of a mastodon which has endured more than 3 million years of Nature but now is threatened by vandals.

"It's like Christmas time with all these packages around here," said Tom Lugaski, curator of the W.M. Keck Museum at the University of Nevada, Reno.

He was among a group of about 20 scientists, students and volunteers working to unearth at least an exposed leg of the creature, which roamed a then marshy area south of present day Gardnerville some 3 million-3.5 million years ago.

The surprising find was made a month ago by two Gardnerville teen-agers who were riding motorcycles in the steep and rocky section of the Pine Nut Mountains.

Derek Prosser and Dustin Turner not only recognized the object sticking out of the rock as a large bone, but reported their find to the Bureau of Land Management. Prosser, 18, who was at the site on Saturday, said he had seen enough bones to spot the crystallized marrow and know it wasn't just an outcropping of rock.

"They did everything exactly right. We're lucky they found the bones and even luckier they reported it," BLM historical archaeologist Gary Bowyer said.

Despite the rugged remoteness of the site, word leaked out of its whereabouts and there have been signs of non-scientific exploration, Bowyer said.

That put pressure on the experts to interrupt their Easter weekend before there's any lasting damage.

"This is an emergency excavation" Bowyer said.

Using tools ranging from pressure bars to hammers and chisels to soft brushes, workers hunkered down in a pit about 10 feet in diameter to remove the fairly soft sandstone from around the buried bone.

They unearthed the front shin of the mastodon and believed they had found an attached foot as well on Saturday. There's no idea how much more - if any - lies buried in the hillside or if there are other fossilized animals close by.

A fist-sized chunk of skull and fragments of rib bones leave Lugaski optimistic the find will range beyond just the leg. The paleontologically rich area already has yielded remains of camels, horses and extinct bears, which put the date of the American mastodon at the upper end of the species' reign in North America. They first appeared about 3.75 million years ago and abruptly disappeared 10,000 years ago at the beginning of the Ice Age.

A youngster had little trouble gathering ancient non-mastodon teeth lying on the steep hillside above the dig to turn over to the researchers. Walking off with archaeological trophies can bring a stiff fine.

The site now almost exactly 1 mile above sea level, originally was some 700 feet lower and was much wetter since the Sierra were still forming and Pacific storms could easily cross into the valley, according to UNR geologist Pat Cashman.

The climate encouraged the growth of shrubs and small trees in great enough abundance to keep the elephant-like animals well fed.

"They'd clear off this whole hillside in no time today," Cashman said.

Mastodons were smaller than their towering relatives the mammoths and were squatter and longer than modern elephants, averaging 6-10 feet at the shoulder and about 15 feet from the root of the tusks to the start of their tail. They were covered by a coarse, reddish-brown hair.

The age of this mastodon makes it a rare find but also makes radioactive carbon dating impossible since that is accurate only to about 500,000 years, according to UNR graduate student Tom Mantean. Other dating methods and fossilized material around the excavation will make more accurate dating possible as they are studied more carefully at UNR.