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The Snowmastodon Project: Cutting-edge science on the
blade of a bulldozer

Jeffrey S. Pigati, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver Federal Center,
Box 25046, MS-980, Denver, Colorado 80225, USA, jpigati@usgs.
gov; Ian M. Miller, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Denver Museum of
Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver, Colorado 80205,
USA; and Kirk R. Johnson*, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Denver
Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver,
Colorado 80205, USA

GSA TODAY | SEPTEMBER 2015 FIRST A DISCOVERY, THEN DIGGING LIKE MAD Figure 1. An army of scientists and volunteers removed ~8,000 cubic meters of
sediment (all by hand!) from the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site near Snowmass
Scalpel. Knife. Shovel. A bulldozer’s blade. Village, Colorado, USA, and recovered thousands of Pleistocene fossils.

Cutting-edge science happens at a variety of scales, from the history. The excavations were conducted initially using a tech-
individual and intimate to the large-scale and collaborative. The nique called “bladerunning,” during which a scientist would walk
publication of a special issue of Quaternary Research in Nov. 2014 alongside the blade of a bulldozer and ask the driver to a halt
dedicated to the scientific findings of the “Snowmastodon whenever evidence of a fossil popped up. When that happened, the
Project” highlights what can be done when natural history bulldozer would move over a bit, the site would be flagged, and a
museums, governmental agencies, and academic institutions work team of volunteers would race over, dig like mad, and document
toward a common goal. the position and orientation of the fossil before removing it for
transport offsite. The driver would then work in a different area
On 14 Oct. 2010, a third-generation bulldozer driver named with the bladerunner in tow until the site was cleared.
Jesse Steele was pushing dirt as part of a reservoir expansion
project high in the Rocky Mountains at Ziegler Reservoir, just This delicate dance between construction and science
outside Snowmass Village, Colorado, USA. The reservoir was to proceeded amidst a climate of growing trust. On one hand, it was
be enlarged to meet the needs of a growing population and a
local ski resort, and up until that point, the work was right on
schedule. When Steele pushed up some strange bones along
with the usual lake muds, however, it was apparent that every-
thing was about to change.

The new owners of the site, the Snowmass Water and Sanitation
District (SWSD) placed phone calls, first to the Colorado State
Geological Survey and then to the Denver Museum of Nature &
Science (DMNS). Within a day of the discovery, the DMNS had
mobilized a group of scientists, including several geologists from
the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), to visit the site and determine
if the find was an isolated occurrence or perhaps the beginning of
something larger. As it turned out, the term “large” wasn’t quite
right. Huge, perhaps? Enormous? Epic? Maybe all of the above?

During a span of three weeks in the fall of 2010 and seven weeks
in the spring of 2011, dozens of scientists from around the world
joined more than 250 volunteers to recover a treasure-trove of late
Pleistocene fossils that included American mastodon, Columbian
mammoth, and other large megafauna and to study the site and its

GSA Today, v. 25, no. 9, doi: 10.1130/GSATG240GW.1.

*Current address: National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Box 37012, MRC 106, Washington, D.C. 20013, USA.

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