Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument

This year, for the first time, the NPS hired a shared paleontologist to support multiple parks in the same region. Dr. Aubrey Bonde was selected as the Southern Network Paleontologist to support five parks throughout Southern Nevada and California.

Derek Carter is the new Superintendent of Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, a rich Pleistocene fossil site northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Management of this site, which is both recently established and adjacent to a growing metro area, has numerous challenges and opportunities. Superintendent Carter looks to address visitor experience, scientific research, and resource management.

Mammoths, mastodons, and other proboscideans are among the most familiar fossil organisms. An inventory complied by Jim Mead and others documents the occurrences of these animals in 63 National Park Service units.

Although some species have gone extinct, bison have lived in North America for hundreds of thousands of years. Herds of now-extinct bison once lived in what is now Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument during the Pleistocene epoch, between 100,000-12,500 years ago.

Horses first evolved in North America during the Eocene epoch and adapted to the changing climate over tens of millions of years. <em>Equus scotti</em> was one of the last of the native North American horses and had a wide distribution over the continent, before it went extinct 10,000 years ago.

The Cenozoic Era (66 million years ago [MYA] through today) is the "Age of Mammals." North America’s characteristic landscapes began to develop during the Cenozoic. Birds and mammals rose in prominence after the extinction of giant reptiles. Common Cenozoic fossils include cat-like carnivores and early horses, as well as ice age woolly mammoths.

Across the US, changes in water availability are altering which plants grow where. These changes are evident at a broad scale. But not all areas experience the same climate in the same way, even within the boundaries of a single national park. A new dataset gives park managers a valuable tool for understanding why vegetation has changed and how it might change in the future under different climate-change scenarios.

The Columbian mammoth is the largest and most identified extinct large mammal found in the Las Vegas Formation at Tule Springs Fossil Bed National Monument. Columbian mammoths belonged to the same family as living elephants.