๐ฆฌ๐๐ฆฅ๐ช For #FossilFriday Highway crews in the 1960s uncovered Ice Age megafauna while building Interstate 94 in central Minnesota. Among the finds were the tibia bones of multiple bison โ the fifth most common veribrate mammal element Iโve documented in collections across the Midwest. Each bone carries data from ancient herds roaming post-glacial midwestern landscapes.
#Pleistocene #AnokaSandPlain #BisonOccidentalis #Palaeontology #Fossils #Mnmuseums #CitizenScience
๐ฆฅ For #FossilFriday this is P68.40.1 - the rarest Minnesota fossil Iโve ever held in my hand: an well-preserved ungual phalanx of Megalonyx jeffersoni (Giant Ground Sloth).
Discovered in the late 1960s in a pile of excavated peat, it remains the singular specimen of this animal found in the state and is now in the Science Museum of Minnesotaโs collection.
#Pleistocene #AnokaSandPlain #Megalonyxjeffersoni #Palaeontology #Groundsloth #CitizenScience
Plates: Erickson, Bruce R. (1968).
๐๐ฆฅ๐ช #FossilFriday: Meet the big boyโBison Skull #147 from the Anoka Sand Plains Cherney Bison Site - found in a paleo-channel running through an ancient peat bog.
Skull #147 is one of the largest specimens out of over 100 โ an impressive 94 cm (37 in.) across the horn cores - materials at the site were dated to 7,146 ยฑ 25 years BP.
Now at the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History
#Pleistocene #AnokaSandPlain #BisonOccidentalis #Palaeontology #CitizenScience
๐#LostBones #FossilFriday๐ฆฅ๐ด๐๐ช๐๐This huge bison skull, from the Melrose Area Historical Society collection, is the broadest I have come across, with a cranial width (between horn cores and orbits) of 32.5 cm. It was found in a local farmer's field after a rainstorm in 2010.
The Des Moines and Superior glacial lobes heavily influenced the geology south of Melrose.
melrosemnhistory.com
#anokasandplain #pleistocene #bison #bovid #bones #palaeontology #fossils #shareyourdiscovery #citizenscience
Itโs a #Minnesota #LostBones #FossilFriday! ๐๐ฆฅ๐ด๐๐ช๐๐ This beautiful juvenile bison mandible is estimated to be from an individual around 4 months old. It was found in a sinkhole in Wolcott township by an independent researcher and is currently housed at the Rice County Historical Society in Faribault.
@ricecountyhistory #pleistocene #anokasandplain #bisonbison #palaeontology #shareyourdiscovery #citizenscience #ricecounty
๐#LostBones #FossilFriday๐ฆฅ๐ด๐๐ช๐๐ In 1983 while constructing a reservoir in Sherburne County Minnesota a farmer came across hundreds of jumbled bison bones.
in 1984, due to the nature of the site and the distribution of the bones, Dr. Stanley Lewis of St. Cloud State University concluded that the bison had possibly been washed in during a flood event.
www.stcloudstate.edu/biology
#pleistocene #anokasandplain #bisonbison #palaeontology #shareyourdiscovery #citizenscience #Minnesota
Marcus Brandel