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A molar from an ancient Pacific mastodon was discovered in a San Mateo County open space preserve during fieldwork for a habitat restoration project, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District announced Sept. 9. The fossil is estimated to be 10,000 years old.
“It’s the most complete mastodon molar from our area, and the most spectacular mastodon molar that I’ve ever seen,” Wayne Thompson, a paleontologist and owner of Pacific Paleontology, said in a press release. “I had chills and shivers up and down my spine.”
Pacific mastodons were large herbivores that roamed California, Oregon, other parts of the western United States and Mexico during the Pleistocene epoch. The epoch began about 2.5 million years ago and ended about 11,700 years ago, according to Midpen.
Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist with Balance Hydrologics who studies how landscapes form, found the fossil in a creek bed in a redwood forest while surveying a project to support threatened California red-legged frogs. What initially appeared to be an unusually shaped rock was later identified by paleontologists as an intact molar from an adult Pacific mastodon.
The tooth was remarkably well preserved, according to Midpen.
“I’ve gone out and seen stuff in the field, but definitely nothing as exciting as this,” Lynch said.
Researchers identified the Pacific mastodon as a species distinct from the American mastodon in 2019, following extensive study of mastodon bones found in Southern California.
Midpen donated the fossil to Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability, where researchers will use carbon dating to determine its exact age. Stanford will also produce a 3D scan that Midpen can use for educational efforts.
Midpen is a special district that manages open space in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. It operates 27 preserves totaling more than 70,000 acres.
“The fact that mastodons were out here in the same landscape that we’re in today really drives home how important the work that we do is to keep species from winking out forever,” Midpen biologist Matt Sharp Chaney said.
Midpen spokesperson Ryan McCauley said the district is not identifying the exact location of the discovery so visitors do not attempt to search for their own fossils.
