Very big fossil hunt FYI.

[Stingray]

Just in case you weren’t aware. Seems in the 1940’s NYC museum dumped a box car full of mammoth and other pliestocene  fossils in the east river either ran out of room or just didn’t want them.  

Divers hunting for lost woolly mammoth bones in New York City's East River have finally made a discovery - uncovering what is believed to be the jawbone of a long-extinct steppe bison.

Crews have been scanning the river after records surfaced suggesting the American Museum of Natural History dumped thousands of mammoth bones there in the 1940s when it ran out of storage space.

Over the weekend, a team led by Don Gann, 35, and Christopher Ogden emerged from the water with their first discovery - the jawbone of an animal that went extinct some 10,000 years ago.

[Fossildude19]

Moved to FOSSIL NEWS. 

[digit]

Seems like a lot of hype on this story which makes me suspicious (especially if one of the people behind this story is a media personality). It would not surprise me to hear a follow-up story about some divers being injured or killed trying to retrieve these allegedly dumped mammoth fossils. I'd like to see some supporting documentation on this story as it really doesn't seem to pass the sniff test. Claims are that 500,000 specimens were dumped still in crates. That is a HUGE amount of fossil material on par with the entire cataloged collection of the FLMNH. Claims of the valuation of these alleged dumped fossils also seems highly inflated. The first report of this supposed mammoth cache seems to have been made around 7 months ago and I'm not seeing much follow-up with pictures and details.

 

I am a natural skeptic and while this would be an interesting discovery of long lost specimens I'm not quite buying this story yet.

 

Back in the day when companies first started mining phosphate from the Bone Valley in Florida, the mine would load the phosphate into barrels which were loaded onto boats to transport the phosphate to where it could be processed into fertilizer and other uses. The story I've heard is that the miners would include fossils that were uncovered while mining the phosphate. They would apparently pack those into the barrels as it helped fill them up (rather unscrupulously). One purchaser of these barrels of phosphate is said to have had enough of this "contaminating" the phosphate with fossil bones and had the contents of the barrels screened and re-barreled at the dock on the river where the shipments were picked up. The unwanted fossil material was supposedly dumped right at the dock. Over time the river shifted its course and people who have researched this story have found discard piles of Bone Valley fossil material dumped where the docks once stood. I believe this story may have been mentioned on this very forum many years back. I'm still skeptical of that story but it is much more believable than half a million mammoth bones being dumped in the East River.

 

Just my 3 cents worth (adjusted for inflation).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Stingray]

The only recovery to date is bison bones in the east river. The only thing that makes me think this might be possible “ not the quantity “ but the fact that they may have dumped in the east river. The fact that that it was common practice for the city of Ny to dump all sorts of materials in the Hudson and east river . Now that they have bison bones maybe they’ll turn up more than a urban legend.  Although finding anything in that river as  silty, dirty as it is you can’t see you hand in front of your face. They would be better off dredging the bottom until the actually locate something substantial.

[digit]

"Urban legend" may be a good way of putting this. Is there actually any solid evidence (other than hearsay) that such a large consignment of unopened crated fossil material was dumped in the river? The East River certainly has the reputation for dumping of all sorts of items (besides the occasional mobster ) but I'd like to know any facts pertaining to the origin of this supposed anthropogenic "Elephant's Graveyard".

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Stingray]

I haven’t seen anything personally although pulling up a bison from that river is rather shocking. The current in that river is crazy fast especially at tide change. Like I said I personally wouldn’t dive I would just dredge the bottom much safer than diving although this last find has put more divers on site so I guess we’ll see what surfaces. Maybe they’ll find that missing Malaysian flight

 

[digit]

And maybe George Mallory's missing camera (with photos of the Loch Ness Monster).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Stingray]