AMERICANALMANAC (Sadie Smith) - Fossilized mastodon tooth surfaces in California creek bed, stunning paleontologists
A geologist conducting routine field surveys in a San Mateo County preserve stumbled onto a fossilized Pacific mastodon molar in "immaculate condition", a find paleontologists are calling the most complete specimen ever recovered from the region. Brigid Lynch discovered the tooth partially submerged in a wooded creek bed while working on a California red-legged frog […] The post Fossilized mastodon tooth surfaces in California creek bed, stunning paleontologists appeared first on American Almanac .
A geologist conducting routine field surveys in a San Mateo County preserve stumbled onto a fossilized Pacific mastodon molar in "immaculate condition", a find paleontologists are calling the most complete specimen ever recovered from the region. Brigid Lynch discovered the tooth partially submerged in a wooded creek bed while working on a California red-legged frog habitat restoration project in a Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She initially thought it was an oddly shaped rock. It was not. Paleontologists later confirmed the fossil was an intact upper left third molar from an adult Pacific mastodon, ABC News reported . The tooth measures roughly 8.5 inches long, 7 inches deep, and 3…Open