Approaching the Visitor's Center
In 1971, Mike Voorhies discovered a cliff that led to an amazing find: the remains of a baby rhino in volcanic ash. Over the years, he and his team would uncover nearly 200 complete animal skeletons in an area as small as a basketball court at what is now called the Ashfall Fossil Beds. These animals were caught in what was likely a water hole and were buried during a massive volcanic eruption from a supervolcano in Idaho, which caused a long-lasting ash fall that rendered the area uninhabitable. This event left the animals struggling for survival, ultimately leading to their slow suffocation over days and weeks. Today, the site is a popular attraction for visitors interested in paleontology.
Mike Voorhies, UNSM Paleontologist Emeritas and founder of the Ashfall Fossil Beds provides an overview of how the discovery happened that paved the way for this historical park.
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(light music)
[Mike Voorhies] I first came here in 1971. From my map, it looked as if there was probably a cliff over here. Ah. Wow. There it is. That's the kind of a thing that makes the paleontologist's heart go pit or pat, because you can actually see some bedrock. There was still a 10 foot bed of volcanic ash looming above my head.
So I wanted to climb up and take a look. I started taking samples of it and I happened to notice a little piece of bone about eight inches long. Eventually that turned out to be the skull of a baby rhino. Not only was there an entire skeleton of a rhino, but as we dug around, we found five more skeletons.
[Narrator] By 1978, Voorhies' team unearthed nearly 200 complete animals in an area the size of a basketball court. It was an unprecedented discovery. To protect future remains, a building was constructed over the entire fossil bed. Today, the site draws throngs of visitors to see a unique working excavation. Voorhies named the site Ashfall Fossil Beds.
(tool scraping)
An entire community of animals lie in their death poses. Entombed in volcanic Ash. In what was once a water hole in the vast grassland plains. It looks a lot like the savannas of Africa, doesn't it? Big water hole where animals would go every day probably for a drink of water or to bathe.
[Mike Voorhies] As far as we can tell, this was probably the only water hole for at least a mile in any direction.
[Narrator] But one day, 12 million years ago, life at the water hole was upended by an abrupt event.
[Mike Voorhies] It's almost like an atomic eruption.
[Narrator] The eruption was from a supervolcano in Southwestern Idaho, far more powerful than any ever witnessed in human history. So all we can do is extrapolate from the much smaller volcanoes, like Mount St. Helens that we have witnessed. And yes, when Mount St Helens went off there was this big billowing cloud but less than a day
later, that was all gone.
[Narrator] But the ashfall from the super volcano did not clear.
[Mike Voorhies] In fact, the air probably didn't clear up for at least weeks, maybe months, after the time that the ash first fell. Every step the animals took, they'd be kicking up a cloud of that ash. So 24 hours a day, these animals would be experiencing
slow death from suffocation.
[Narrator] Signs of their anguishing death show up as scaly white deposits on the bones of the Ashfall animals.
[Mike Voorhies] We know from the disease on the bones that we see on the skeletons that these animals began to develop the symptoms of lung failure. Their legs swelled up so that they had a hard time moving. They had a high fever. Little ones died first. Medium sized animals died later over a period of several weeks.
[Narrator] Trapped within the ash is an unrivaled example of evolution in action. Five distinct types of horses are found here. Most have three toes, but some members of one species, pliohippus, developed shrunken side toes while others have none, like modern horses. This is a clear sign of natural selection at work captured in a snapshot in time. And there's more drama sealed within the ash.
[Mike Voorhies] It just happened that the volcanic ash fell about a month after most of the animals had given birth. We find lots of baby rhinos and baby horses and baby camels. We've actually found one rhino that still had a baby inside at the time that the ash fell.
(somber music)
Beneath the ash are tracks from the animals last moments of life. I'm very interested in what happened here. These animals basically died in their tracks. They became so weak and sick that at some point they toppled over and they haven't moved for 12 million years.
[Narrator] But a mystery remains after the ash fell. Some skeletons are no longer intact. We find good evidence that at least some meat eating animals were still alive at least several weeks after the rhinos and horses and camels were dead. There's a bone here that could only have gotten here by being picked up by a scavenger
[Narrator] And close by are the newest scavenged remains.
[Mike Voorhies] Hi Kaylee.
-Hey
-How are you?
-I'm fine. How are you?
-Pretty good.
[Mike Voorhies] You found a nice little critter over here, didn't you?
[Student] Yep. I actually don't really know what it is.
[Mike Voorhies] Do you have any ideas?
[Student] Well, it looks like a little carnivore, probably a dog.
[Mike Voorhies] The only dog that size that we know of that lived at this time is a little thing called leptocyon. Which is probably the smallest dog that lived at this time. And as you can see, he's maybe at the shoulder, maybe only about eight inches tall as he stands.
You can see some beautiful toes here and then the little claws. But it is a nice little dog.
[Narrator] Nearby is an unexpected clue that may show how this small dog leg came to rest here.
[Mike Voorhies] We're looking at the bottom couple of feet of volcanic ash. One of these very thin layers has tracks. This is a footprint of a big meat eating animal probably a bone crushing dog. The carnivores had the option of going into an underground burrow but the
hoofed animals like the camels and rhinos did not. So the rhinos had to stand around 24 hours a day, seven days a week breathing the volcanic ash and they died. But evidence like this tells us that the carnivores were still alive.
[Narrator] One mystery remains.
(eruption blasts)
[Mike Voorhies] When the ancient volcano erupted it spread ash over thousands of miles. But did the super volcano cause an extinction event? You could look in any direction and there wouldn't have been anything alive probably for, who knows, several years. But as far as we know nothing became extinct because of the Ashfall.
