50 years of excavation unveiled the story of a catastrophic event and its aftermath.
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The “Pompeii of paleontology” preserves a time when rhinos roamed Nebraska
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Fascinating article, though it took a bit of digging [sic] to find out the eruption was from the Bruneau-Jarbidge volcanic field, for those that are interested.
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That complex is still active. It’s now at Yellowstone due to continental drift. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago, with a frequency of one or two eruptions per million years or so. Potentially, we could get another eruption any time (it would give us warning though). Or, it could be 500k to a million years from now. Wikipedia link.
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I am glad the article covered the question of why just here? This site is 900 miles from the volcano. That means there should be sites in a roughly 1,800 diameter circle. Probably more of a teardrop due to prevailing winds. It is quite exciting what could be found next.
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Congratulations and credit to Prof. Voorhies for doing the most basic of science concepts: go looking. You never know what you can find.
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For those wondering the eruption which created this ash layer occurred 12 million years ago. Although the date is implied far down the article, it serves clarity to explicitly name the time context of (pre)historic events nearer the beginning of a report imo.
Edit: as Subsavant correctly stated the 12 million year date corresponds to the Bruneau-Jarbridge eruption. Not as I had earlier stated the Mc Mullen Creek event.
An interesting map of the drift of the Yellowstone hotspot.
Edit: as Subsavant correctly stated the 12 million year date corresponds to the Bruneau-Jarbridge eruption. Not as I had earlier stated the Mc Mullen Creek event.
An interesting map of the drift of the Yellowstone hotspot.
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Thank you. I loved the article, but not having this detail was driving me nuts.
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Absolutely Amazing! My inner child now tells me that there is a reason to go to Nebraska. Ashfall Fossil Beds is an ancient and natural Popeii of its time.
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I previously had no idea that saber tooth deer existed. And still exist today!
This site is incredibly cool, but also a somewhat morbid reminder that the Earth just...explodes sometimes.
This site is incredibly cool, but also a somewhat morbid reminder that the Earth just...explodes sometimes.
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Just when you might think there’s nothing to see in Nebraska. Thank you for posting this article, I’ll keep it in mind if I’m out that way again.
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Yes. I haz sads for baby rhinos.
Remember kids, the universe is a glorious, beautiful place...that's trying all kinds of ways to kill you!
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I was aware of the site but the detail in the article was excellent. Well done Jeanne Timmons!
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The universe giveth, and the universe taketh away.
i haz sads for baby rhinos too...
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My mental image if those last rhinos lying on the ash and animal carcases of their filled in and dried up watering hole, gasping their final breaths, is... poignant? Heartbreaking? Horrifying? All of the above, I guess.
My thanks go out to everyone who worked so hard to provide an understanding of this event, and to Ars for the excellent article describing it.
My thanks go out to everyone who worked so hard to provide an understanding of this event, and to Ars for the excellent article describing it.
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That seems to be true. We went to Nebraska to see the 2017 eclipse, and we had a bit of extra time around it. Before the trip, I checked if there were any sights we should check out while we were there, and the top picks I found on the Internet were the Lincoln Zoo and the world's largest railway classification yard. (We ended up spending a day visiting some old railway towns in the area instead.)
I don't know whether we would have been able to fit a trip to Ashfall into our schedule, but I'm sure we would have tried, had we known that it existed.
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Out of interest, where did you find that this was the McMullen Creek super-eruption? From this article it suggests that eruption was ~9 million years ago, whereas as you say the article implies the eruption here was ~12 million years ago. My own searching found this entry, which also references these Ashford fossil beds. IANA geologist or paleontologist, etc.
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Having witnessed various ‘normal’ eruptions on the six o’clock news, the thought of an event spanning a 900 mile diameter, with pyroclastic flows extending out about a 100 miles is a mind boggling level of destruction.
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The Tuff of McMullen Creek is 8.6-8.8 Ma in age, erupted from the Twin Falls eruptive center (8-10 Ma). If the ash at this site is circa 12 Ma (as stated on the park website) then it would have come from the Bruneau-Jarbidge eruptive center (circa 10-12 Ma). Although both are part of the Yellowstone-Snake River Plain hotspot track, they are much farther west than Yellowstone. I am a geologist and have worked in the Snake River Plain for a few decades, though not on the rhyolites. Here are a couple of useful citations. I believe this volume (and an older 1982 volume) are available on the Idaho Geological Survey website.
Wright, K.E., Michael McCurry, and S.S. Hughes, 2002, Petrology and geochemistry of the Miocene tuff of McMullen Creek, central Snake River Plain, Idaho, in Bill Bonnichsen, C.M. White, and Michael McCurry, eds., Tectonic and Magmatic Evolution of the Snake River Plain Volcanic Province: Idaho Geological Survey Bulletin 30, p. 177-194.
Hughes, S.S., and Michael McCurry, 2002, Bulk major and trace element evidence for a time-space evolution of Snake River Plain rhyolites, Idaho, in Bill Bonnichsen, C.M. White, and Michael McCurry, eds., Tectonic and Magmatic Evolution of the Snake River Plain Volcanic Province: Idaho Geological Survey Bulletin 30, p. 161-176.
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The trailer voiceover for the next installment in the Friday the 13th franchise. Friday the 13th: Family Business
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Huh... I didn't know saber-toothed deer were a thing. Or that they still exist today. That's a mean looking deer. Also quite incredible given that they are herbivores.
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Good outcome here then. Yet how many more sites were lost due to dumb laws allowing private sale of fossils found on private land in the US? How many perfect fossils and their context were lost to science there?
In most other similar high‑income countries, any archaeological or fossil finds are inherently the property of the state, with the finder being reimbursed a certain percentage of the scientific and cultural value of their find. Find a rare Viking hoard of gold coins previously not known in that location? You still get 10% of that, but the find is all preserved for posterity.
Private fossil trade is simply a total abomination and should be outlawed everywhere, just like CITES outlaws trade in protected species.
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Thank you for a well written, fascinating article. I’m glad earlier commenters provided more info on timing related to known Yellowstone hotspot events. Great!
One quibble, though…
“Crater” is often used in place names for calderas, like Crater Lake in the USA and Ngorongoro Crater in the famous conservation area in Tanzania…both are, sensu stricto, calderas.
…but look similar from a high elevation/altitude.
edited for spelling and punctuation
One quibble, though…
Among geoscientists, this large structure would normally be called a caldera, which is formed when the magma chamber beneath a volcano collapses, commonly after an explosive eruption with ejection of a lot of gas and ash. In contrast, craters are associated with vents and are usually surrounded by constructive, not collapse, rims. There’s a nice diagram here, but I couldn’t convert it to a postable format on my handheld.
“Crater” is often used in place names for calderas, like Crater Lake in the USA and Ngorongoro Crater in the famous conservation area in Tanzania…both are, sensu stricto, calderas.
…but look similar from a high elevation/altitude.
edited for spelling and punctuation
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You might want to check out the Wikipedia Volcanic Explosivity Index item. Good chart/illustration with it.
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I'd guess they would have used their saber teeth to dig around in the dirt, similar to the tusks on a present-day boar (but upside down). Then again, maybe not. Natural selection has produced many spectacular, if impractical, fitness displays over the eons.
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If you find yourself in this general area of the US, a similar location worth a visit is The Mammoth Site. Different geological history, but similarly rich fossil concentration.
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Another interesting read about the Yellowstone area:
www.sciencenews.org
A hidden danger lurks beneath Yellowstone
A volcanic eruption at Yellowstone is unlikely anytime soon, but evidence is growing that a violent hydrothermal, or steam, explosion is possible.
www.sciencenews.org
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The leading suspect for this ash seems to be the same eruption that produced the "Ibex Hollow tuff" (maybe also the Corral Creek?), although the slightly younger Ibex Peak 8-Cougar Point VII-Browns Bench has also been suggested. Early eruptions of the Bruneau-Jarbidge as others mention. The various local names and regional correlations remain slightly unsettled--it's cutting edge stuff.
Andrei M. Sarna-Wojcicki, Jefferey R. Knott, John A. Westgate, James R. Budahn, John Barron, Colin J. Bray, Greg A. Ludvigson, Charles E. Meyer, David M. Miller, Rick E. Otto, Nicholas J.G. Pearce, Charles C. Smith, Laura C. Walkup, Elmira Wan, James Yount; Ibex Hollow Tuff from ca. 12 Ma supereruption, southern Idaho, identified across North America, eastern Pacific Ocean, and Gulf of Mexico. Geosphere 2023;; 19 (5): 1476–1507.
Smith JJ, Turner E, Möller A, Joeckel RM, Otto RE (2018) First U-Pb zircon ages for late Miocene Ashfall Konservat-Lagerstätte and Grove Lake ashes from eastern Great Plains, USA. PLoS ONE 13(11)
Andrei M. Sarna-Wojcicki, Jefferey R. Knott, John A. Westgate, James R. Budahn, John Barron, Colin J. Bray, Greg A. Ludvigson, Charles E. Meyer, David M. Miller, Rick E. Otto, Nicholas J.G. Pearce, Charles C. Smith, Laura C. Walkup, Elmira Wan, James Yount; Ibex Hollow Tuff from ca. 12 Ma supereruption, southern Idaho, identified across North America, eastern Pacific Ocean, and Gulf of Mexico. Geosphere 2023;; 19 (5): 1476–1507.
Smith JJ, Turner E, Möller A, Joeckel RM, Otto RE (2018) First U-Pb zircon ages for late Miocene Ashfall Konservat-Lagerstätte and Grove Lake ashes from eastern Great Plains, USA. PLoS ONE 13(11)
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