Among the discoveries highlighted in the study — obtained through a public records request by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility — were “two proboscidean tusks” that could have belonged to a woolly mammoth. The tusks are buried less than 5 feet underground.
Radar images at another site appeared to detect dozens of fossils scattered across a 100-foot-wide area, most buried less than 30 feet, according to the study.
The bureau has proposed routing the power line 5 feet inside the monument near the road that splits the north and south units of the 22,650-acre monument, which was established by Congress in 2014 to protect the fossils of long-extinct species like the Columbian mammoth and the sabertooth cat.