[Nmcaver] another new cave in the news

[Minton, Mark]

      John Lyles said:

>In todays ()ct. 30) print edition of THE NEW MEXICAN newspaper, article on Riverbluff Cave near Springfield,MO, recently discovered, with bones, short faced bear claw marks, etc. I cannot find it online, maybe they will post it on the FREE New Mexican pages tomorrow. Title "Cave Harbors Ice Age Treasures", page A9.

      There was a nice report on this on CNN:  <http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/10/30/ice.age.cave.ap/index.html>

Mark Minton


Cave an Ice Age time capsule
POSTED: 3:40 p.m. EST, October 30, 2006

SPRINGFIELD, Missouri (AP) -- The bear that left a 3-foot-long claw mark in
an Ice Age clay bank was the largest bear species ever to walk the earth,
about 6 feet tall at the shoulder and capable of moving its 1,800 pounds up
to 45 miles per hour in a snarling dash for prey.

The claw mark by the extinct giant short-faced bear still looks fresh today
in a southwest Missouri cave that some scientists are calling a national
treasure -- an Ice Age time capsule sealed for thousands of years.

Discovered accidentally five years ago on the outski3rts of Springfield,
Riverbluff Cave is slowly yielding its fossil treasures as a small team of
scientists and volunteers gingerly explores it while trying to preserve a
rich bed of remains, from bones to tracks and dung.

"We found 5,000 microfossils in just one 1-foot by 2-foot block of clay,"
said lead paleontologist Matt Forir, the naturalist for Springfield-Greene
County Parks.

Remains in the cave date back at least 830,000 years and possibly over 1
million years. At some point at least 55,000 years ago, it was sealed by
rocks and mud until a construction crew blasted a hole in one end while
building a road in September 2001.

The first major excavation is set for this fall after years of carefully
surveying the 2,000-foot-long cave and collecting remains from the cave
floor or protruding from the limestone and clay walls.

Just based on what was on the surface, the finds so far include mammoth and
horse bones and beds clawed out of the clay by the short-faced bear,
possibly while denning with cubs. Peccary tracks are the first proof that
herds of the pig-like animals roamed in caves rather than just being dragged
in by predators.

There are tracks of large cats, possibly saber-toothed tigers or American
lions. Foot-long shells of previously unknown turtle species stick out of a
wall.

Forir said every discovery raises new questions. Mammoth bones and a
juvenile tooth dated around 630,000 years ago came from one of two species
and it will require more adult remains to tell which one it is. He hopes the
excavation will provide answers.

"We either have the oldest wooly mammoth in North America or the youngest
Meridian mammoth. Most of the stuff in this cave is like that, always
raising more questions," he said.

Paleontologist Larry Agenbroad, who heads a major mammoth excavation project
called The Mammoth Site in South Dakota, said the number of remains of large
animals and the fact that Riverbluff Cave was sealed like a time capsule
make it a rarity.

"This is a national paleontological treasure," he said.

Greg McDonald, senior curator of natural history for the National Park
Service, said Riverbluff Cave offers rare insight into Ice Age ecology. By
combining animal bones with other traces, including tracks and dung, it can
show how Ice Age animals lived, what they ate and what killed them off.

"It's a unique combination of traces and the quality of preservation that
makes it such a phenomenal site," McDonald said. "It's probably going to
become a major reference site that will help us better understand the
remains we have at other sites."

If research confirms that dung in the bear beds is from the short-faced
bear, it would be a first and could provide real clues about what the bears
ate, McDonald said.

Forir said the short-faced bear was the largest land predator of its time,
roaming much of North America and catching its prey with a jaw power of more
than 2,000 pounds per square inch. Its name comes from a shortened muzzle,
more like a lion's than a black or brown bear's.

"It was the T-Rex of the Ice Age," Forir said.

The cave remains closed to the public to preserve its remains. After an
attack by vandals, it was sealed by the county behind locked metal doors
equipped with an alarm.

But with the help of the Springfield-Greene County library system and Ozarks
Technical Community College, Forir installed a fiber optic network that lets
him broadcast pictures from the cave for school classes and the public.

"This is where the Ice Age meets the Space Age," he said.

The cave has also spawned another educational project, Missouri's first
natural history museum.

Forir won a grant to build a 4,000-square-foot building near the cave that
will house a new Natural History Museum of the Ozarks. The museum, which
should be constructed by early 2007, will showcase the cave's findings as
well as regional natural history.