Underground water dissolved limestone and shale
About 26,000 years ago.
The rock collapsed
A water-filled sink hole began to grow.
Young bull mammoths
Looking for an easy lunch
Drank the warm water
And the grass they did munch.
But the pond was too deep,
The bank was too slippery and steep.
The ice age mammals could not
Escape their fate: eternal sleep.
For thousands of years
Coarse sand and clay
Covered their bones,
Preserving them until the day
A bulldozer hit a tusk!
Scientists came and found the remains
In the South Dakota plains.
A young mammoth is attracted to a sink hole. Artwork by Gavin Seltz. |
View of the Mammoth bones being excavated. |
A large number of mammoths perished at the Mammoth Hot Springs, NE |
A mammoth skeleton. |
About the author: