Paleontologists identify Nebraskans’ fossils

ROYAL, Neb. (KCAU) — A group of Nebraska paleontologists spent time in Antelope County this weekend, helping residents identify the fossils they found themselves.

According to paleontologists, fossils can be found just about anywhere, you just have to look hard enough.

“The world hasn’t always been the same as it looks right now. I think, you know, as a kid growing up, when I fell in love with paleontology, that was one of the things that just amazed me that, you know, I was used to cornfields and soybean fields and that was about it, but to know that the world can change through time and to have a record of that is pretty interesting to me,” said Sam Matson, the superintendent with Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park.

In an effort to teach and inform people about what happened and roamed Nebraska a million years ago, paleontologists sat up a table at Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park to identify fossils folks have brought in.

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“Nebraska is really well-known for mammal fossils, and so we’re in terms of earth history, we’re at a point where grasslands were evolving, but Ashfall was more of a savanna environment. We had rhinoceroses and horses running around, but then we also find younger animals, too, like mammoths and other ice age mammals,” said Matson.

Nebraska Paleontologists have found all sorts of fossils over the years, from the bone of a camel to the skull of a giant beaver. On Sunday, professionals saw some interesting finds from residents.

“We had a guy bring in a tooth from a four tusked elephant, so an animal called a Gomphothere, he found as he was floating down the river, and he has two teeth of that individual plus part of the jaw. We had somebody bring in an axe that was between two and six thousand years old that he had found as well. So we’re kind of getting a mix of artifacts and also fossils,” said Shane Tucker, a paleontologist with the University of Nebraska State Museum.

While it may seem daunting to fossil hunt, experts want to encourage folks to give it a try.

“Many people will go fishing, so they might see things on a lake shore they might have gravel dumped on their driveway if they live in the country, and they go out, and they look in those gravels, and they’ll pick up teeth. Things that were buried originally in those ancient rivers have now come to the surface in the gravels and are dumped on the surface and then just go out and pick up channels,” said Tucker.

If you find yourself a fossil, Tucker encourages folks to write down the coordinates and contact your local paleontologist.

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