Quick Take
We will soon know the approximate age of the mastodon tooth fossil discovered at Rio Del Mar State Beach last Memorial Day weekend. But that's not the only fossil-related excitement expected for 2024.
When, out for a Memorial Day Weekend walk along Rio Del Mar State Beach, an Aptos vacationer posted a photo on Facebook of an irregularly shaped and jagged object she walked past in the sand, the discovery sparked something of an international frenzy.
The object turned out to be a tooth of a mastodon, the prehistoric cousin of elephants that went extinct 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. By the time local paleontologist Wayne Thompson heard about the tooth and dashed to the beach to look for the fossil — only hours after the original post — the tooth was gone. Days later, an Aptos jogger privy to the hoopla generated by the chomper turned the significant scientific discovery into the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
In the months following the discovery, the museum held an impromptu weekend exhibit days after the tooth was turned in, then hosted a more formal showing during October and into November. Kathleen Aston, the museum’s collections manager, said the tooth now sits inside the museum’s vault as it awaits some exciting news, expected this year.
Preliminary testing showed the tooth met the conditions to undergo what’s known as carbon-14 testing, or carbon-dating. This means scientists will be able to approximate the fossil’s age. Aston said UC Santa Cruz earth sciences and biology professor Paul Koch has taken a lead on carbon-dating the fossil and has been working with a partner from UC Irvine to test a sample from the tooth. Aston couldn’t provide a specific date, but said she hopes the results will be published “early [this] year.”
Aston expects the tooth to eventually return to the museum’s exhibit floor; however, a permanent display is not guaranteed. Fossils as ancient as the mastodon tooth can be hypersensitive to light, and overexposure could harm the specimen. Aston expects the tooth to go on display periodically to “minimize exposure.”
“Right now, the tooth has been stabilized but it needs a bit more conservation before it can go on long-term display,” Aston said.
Aston said the mastodon fossil is only one piece of the fossil excitement expected in 2024. She declined to give much detail, but said at least one other significant discovery was made in the county last year. However, unlike the tooth, which caused an international frenzy before it even arrived at the museum, Aston and her colleagues are taking a careful, measured approach to announcing this latest discovery to the public.
“The mastodon tooth was exciting, and everything happened so quickly,” Aston said. “With this new thing, we want to be strategic and prepared in our communication approach and have better management around it.”
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