Monthly Gathering—June 2003
Finding Michigan's Mastodons
At the time that mastodons were living in Michigan, the glaciers of the last Ice Age were receding and a northern forest habitat was taking their place. Although long extinct due to climate change and hunting by Paleo-Indians, try to imagine these close relatives of today’s elephants loping casually through what became your backyard, because they may very well have done just that.
In January 1992, Harry Brennan began excavating on his land near Saline in order to construct a pond that his grandchildren could enjoy. In the process, some mastodon bones were uncovered. Remarkable enough, but during the subsequent dig by paleontologists not only were additional bones found, but a series of mastodon tracks as well! The latter proved especially exciting, in as much as it was the first mastodon “trackway” ever found anywhere! The 50 meters of footprints were laid down some 11,000 years ago, when an adult mastodon male, female and calf sauntered across the shore of an ancient pond.
Join us on Saturday, June 21, when our guest speaker Dave Thomas, geology instructor at Washtenaw Community College, will show us slides of the Brennan mastodon and trackway, other Michigan fossil finds and discuss his successful campaign to make the mammoth the state fossil. Thomas will share his first-hand experiences on digs for mammoths and dinosaurs in Michigan and across the country, and will also be bringing along some of the fossils found.
Page last updated: Monday, September 1, 2008