The results of the studyconducted in September by a third-party contractor — in collaboration with NPS senior paleontologist Vincent Santucci, two U.S. Geological Survey geologists and the monument’s former acting superintendent — found “deposits deemed to have a high likelihood of vertebrate fossil presence.”
Among the discoveries highlighted in the report — 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 report.