ASPEN, Colo., Jan. 24 (UPI) -- An ice age graveyard near a U.S. ski resort holds the remains of dozens of animals including mammoths, mastodons and a giant ground sloth, researchers say.
The fossilized remains -- found in sediment at the bottom of a drained reservoir in part of the Aspen, Colo., ski resort in the Rocky Mountains -- make up one of the largest collection of animals from the last ice age to be found in one place , Britain's Daily Telegraph reported Sunday.
Paleontologists at the dig have uncovered the remains of four Columbian mammoths, 10 American mastodons, four ice age bison, twice the size of modern bison, a species of ice age deer and a ground sloth, all thought to have lived between 50,000 and 150.000 years ago.
The first mammoth at the location was discovered in October when a bulldozer uncovered some of the ice age mammals' bones during work to expand the Ziegler Reservoir, which sits on a plateau at an elevation of 8,870 feet in the Rockies.
"It is an amazing site and is very unusual," Kirk Johnson, chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science who led the excavation, said. "It is a true treasure trove of ice age fossils.
"Many of the fossils are pristine, as they have been very well preserved," he said. "Some of the bones we recovered are still white while we are finding leaves that are still green and tree branches with the bark still on."
