Stalactites, stalagmites and columns fill the entrance of Riverbluff Cave in Springfield, Mo. The cave was discovered five years ago by construction workers. -- Mark Schiefelbein / AP
Posted on 10/30/2006 11:43:39 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The bear that left a 3-foot-long claw mark in an Ice Age clay bank was the largest bear species ever to walk the Earth, about 6 feet tall at the shoulder and capable of moving its 1,800-pound body at up to 45 mph in a snarling dash for prey... Remains in the cave date back at least 830,000 years and possibly more than 1 million years. At some point at least 55,000 years ago, it was sealed by rocks and mud until a construction crew blasted a hole in one end while building a road in 2001... Peccary tracks are the first proof that herds of the piglike animals roamed in caves rather than just being dragged in by predators. There are tracks of large cats, possibly saber-toothed tigers or American lions. Footlong shells of previously unknown turtle species stick out of a wall. Lead paleontologist Matt Forir said every discovery raises new questions. Mammoth bones and a juvenile tooth dated around 630,000 years ago came from one of two species and it will require more adult remains to tell which one it is. He hopes the excavation will provide answers... Greg McDonald, senior curator of natural history for the National Park Service, said Riverbluff Cave offers rare insight into Ice Age ecology. By combining animal bones with other traces, including tracks and dung, it can show how Ice Age animals lived, what they ate and what killed them off... If research confirms that fossilized dung in the bear beds is from the short-faced bear, it would be a first and could provide real clues about what the bears ate, McDonald said.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Stalactites, stalagmites and columns fill the entrance of Riverbluff Cave in Springfield, Mo. The cave was discovered five years ago by construction workers. -- Mark Schiefelbein / AP
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More here, cool pictures!
http://www.riverbluffcave.com/category/gallery
global warming caused the ice age....
good post thanks
An 1,800 pound bear charging at 45 mph - Sorry PETA, but I’m glad they’re gone.
The man-eating short faced bear is DOOMED to extinction unless we act now!
(so for God's sake, let's not do a damned thing!)
Neat !!
Wow, thanks for that link. Really great images.
Ahem, no human tracks?
If they're there, I doubt we'll ever hear about 'em. Or, they'll be put down to some Huck Finn skinnying down an (unattested) hole 200 years ago and never telling anyone about the cave. :')
Artifacts, perhaps?
Footlong shells of previously unknown turtle species stick out of a wall.That sounds like someone's dinner, but it could have been some bear's lunch as well. :') Thanks, SwampSniper, for that link.
Fossilized turtle shell embedded in east lobby wall; believed to be extinct ancestor of Missouri's common box turtle, this shell measures 9 in. long--the largest turtle today of this type measures only 6 in. A shell measuring one foot in length was found in another passageway. (Photo by Bobbi Shackelford)
Save the Short Faced Bear!
Reunite Pangea!
Thank you so much for that link!
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