Friday, July 25, 2008

The Great Columbian Mammoth



And now for something completely different.

We at Black holes, and when I say we, I mean me, we sounds more important, like there is a group of us getting this stuff out, anyways me tries to get out something new and different with each and every post, this story certainly qualifies as just that.

Just last week we had a break in one of our main water lines coming into the mall I work at, water was gushing out of the asphalt like a fountain, not good. So I call the city to come and shut off the water supply and phone around for a contractor to fix the break.

Enter Bill Garrnet Industries LTD. So we're digging away, and by we're I mean they're digging, digging this hole in our asphalt down to where we think the break may be, and it's getting bigger and bigger, still can't find the break, the hole is now around 10 feet deep by 40 ft long by 24 ft wide, and we're all getting grumpy, and by we're I mean we're, so to add some levity to the situation I says to Bill, "So Bill, ever found any human remains in all your digging adventures?" Bill looks at me and says,"No, but I have found a "Columbian Mammoth". So I look at Bill and start laughing, thinking he was joking, but he gives me that look like, no Bob I'm not joking, so I say oh, really, tell me more.

They were on a dig back in '71 at Babine Lake BC when they dug down to a bunch of white stuff, they stop and go down in the pit to investigate, him and a friend dig out by hand a piece of what they thought to be petrified wood, report the find to their boss and then call it quits for the night and head back to their hotel. So they wake up the next morning, go to the dig to have some more fun, and WOW, there were helicopters, vans, trucks ,tons of people, the whole area was blocked off, the dig, or at least their part was over while the Archaeologists did their part. They found out they had discovered a Columbian Mammoth, how cool was that? Seems the piece they had dug out by hand was a Mammoth tooth. I was standing next to a person who found, not only found but touched a Mammoth's tooth. Radiocarbon tests put the age of the Mammoth at around 34,000 years.



Quick update on the Phoenix Lander . Two thirds of the way through the Lander's mission and they still haven't gotten some of that ice water into it's ovens for analysis, hopefully soon, will keep you up todate in future posts.

I'll leave you now with a clip I put together of a July Moon Rise, this time I took 235 images 5 seconds apart from each other over a 19 minute time frame, to try and make the Moon Rise look nice and smooth.

46 comments:

Swubird said...

Bob:

Wow! You stood next to a guy who touched a 34,000 year old mammoth tooth! That is something. It sure makes you wonder about all of the strange creatures that have lived before us. The world is truly an old place.

Phoenix doesn't seem to be rising from its ashes. Ho-hum. I don't understand what's going on. I mean really. If they got a scoop of Martian dirt into the oven and baked it on low heat, surely a little H20 would have boiled off -- even a microscopic droplet. So what's the deal? Even I can boil water, and as a kid I ate my share of mud pies. It's not rocket science. They didn't have to land in a puddle. If there's water in the Martian ice cap, then they should have found it by now. I'm beginning to think we have to drill much deeper.

The video of the moon rise was nice and smooth. Good job.

Happy stargazing.

Anonymous said...

The moom rise looks great!

Anonymous said...

No human bones? I guess that would have had to be a Swugird story!

Congrats Bob on your 100th post on my Healthy Living site. You now have you mug, I mean photo, up on my sidebar for the next month. Hope it brings you some good traffic and new visitors. Just keep digging and stumbling some of my posts and new traffic will come.

I had several people tell me they had traffic spikes on their sites last week. Their links are in my sidebar and the traffic was on days that my "Water Is The Next Oil" was accumulating its 12,000 reader count. So it is nice to know that new visitors are looking at my sidebar and even following some of the links.

Congratulations again!

Marvin said...

Wow, cool, a Columbian mammoth! Very neat.

You will be tagged, and receive an award, after 8 PM EST.

S-V-H said...

This is a great story, Bob. I enjoyed to read it.

Sherer said...

Wow I always had a facination with dinosaurs and the like when i was younger! great post - and in response to earlier - I was just looking at M13 the other night! My M13 doesnt look quite that good thou - probably because of light pollution - but I can make out the cluster and kind of see individual stars but its not great. I need to find a good desert location. and what was the other M44? I dont think I have seen that

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks swubird, it makes you think of all the buried treasure out there we have yet to find.

As far as the Phoenix, 2/3 way through the mission, I thought more would have been done by now, they probably , at least I'm hoping they have done a lot of cool science we have yet to hear of, at least they did successfully land on Mars, an accomplishment in itself.\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Hey thanks Jared.\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Will, great about my mug on your site, thanks.

Lol about the human bones and a swubird post.\m/.

Very cool about the traffic spikes, and 12,000 readers on your "Water Is The Next Oil post", an excellent post I might add, thanks again Will.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks marvin, it was a very stressful day, the Mammoth story made it a little more palitable,lol.

I'll be by your site later, thanks!\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Hey Susanne, thanks, glad you liked it.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Jesse, M13 , actually all deep sky objects look better from a dark site, but alas, we live in the city, so it kinda sucks, but they are still beautiful.

If you had the 3mm eyepiece it would look pretty good, to see more stars you have to use averted vision, even at a dark site, that is, look off to the side don't focus on the center of the cluster, relax your eyes, I can't impress that enough, relax and focus off to the side , they will come, it will be like magic the more you get the hang of it, more and more stars will appear.

M42 is the Great Orion Nebula, magnificent in any scope, city or country.\m/\m/

Clint Johnson said...

The reporting of that discovery caused such a delay in site preparation that the next two mammoth remains found at Granisle Mines quickly had the choice fossil pieces thrown in the back of a pickup truck and the excavators hurried back to digging.

The fossils that were salvaged ended up in the basement and back of the closet of a couple of the foremen.

The whole area is rife with fossil remains dating from as recent as that mammoth all the way back to mollusks from before the dinosaurs.

MYM said...

Wow...that video is smoooooooooooooth. You're a very talented man. I really enjoyed watching that.

lol @ you asking that guy if he ever found a body, LOL. That mammoth is mammoth! HUGE! That is very cool.

Anonymous said...

Bob,

Was the tooth clean? Just kidding, that is so cool. Wow! He actually held it in his hand.

I loved the moon rising that is really good. Thanks for sharing that. you are really getting good at all of this. I am truly impressed.

Love and Blessings,
AngelBaby

Shirley Twofeathers said...

The mammoth story WAS cool... when I saw the picture I jumped to the conclusion that YOU found one and it was in the MIDDLE of the mall... LOL... it's late, what can I say...

So... what I want to know is ... did you find the water line break? how big of a hole had to be dug to find it?

And thanks Clint for the "rest of the story"...

Oh.. and your videos just get better and better!!

Shirley Twofeathers said...

PS.. Swubird, you ATE those mud pies??? Yowsers!

EspressoHead said...

Hey cool story Bob! Lucky you =)

Nice moon rise too!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks for dropping by Clint, very interesting. \m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks drowsey, I'm sure glad I did ask the question, made the day go by a lot faster and less stressful,lol.\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, thanks AngelBaby,alas the tooth had markings on it, caused I believe from eating the tundra vegetation at the time, don't think they used the proper dental care proceedures,lol.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, and thanks Shirley, I was thinking people might get that idea as well, too bad we didn't find anything, maybe next time,lol.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks and thanks for dropping by espressohead,neat name.\m/\m/

Peter said...

Hi! Putting the clip together with its 235 images would have been a mammoth task. It may have taken 19mins to get, but how long did it take to put the clip together?

The last time I heard about a mammoth being found, it still had the meat on it. Must have been set in ice somewhere. Great post!

Take Care,
Peter

myonlyphoto said...

Wow Bob I though that you and Bill will eventually find the remains, lol. But that is so cool about the 34,000 year old mommoth story. You know, kidding aside about remains, you reminded me something. One day when I was in grade 3 or 4, I was going home from school I found myself passing by our old theather (that was back in Poland). What I saw beside the theather was a excavating site, and they were filling up bags with something, but when I looked closely, they were human remains. Apparently, it was execution site from WWWII. You know from that day, everytime I was passing by this site, I would run. I have this thing with ghosts, lol. Anyway, that is my story, it was scary to see that many bags...Well did not mean to bring up this grotesque story, but you started with 'human remains' lol. Hey, great to see a change. Thanks for sharing. Blackholes and astorstuff team is doing great job, lol. Anna :)

RW said...

Hahaha great story! And I hope that my getting kicked out of Canada did not offend you! :D

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Peter, the film took me 4 hours to put together, there is all kinds of stuff I had to do with each frame before I added it to the clip.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Anna, and thanks for sharing your story, very interesting, must have affected you quite a bit. When I was a kid we had what everyone said was a haunted school house a few blocks away from my house, very scary to a small kid.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Roger, not at all, I thought it was funny.\m/\m/

Ruth said...

You could have had a MALLmoth, hehe. The moon video is just great, such patience you had putting that together.

Don and I laughed at your comment at sync: moon, moon, someone say moon?

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, Ruth at the MALLMOTH, very clever indeed. Yeah the Moon, it always makes my ears perk up,lol.\m/\m/

Speedcat Hollydale said...

I forgot how interesting your blog is ... 235 images 5 seconds apart?? fantastic!!!

Hello from Minnesota :)
Speedy

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks for dropping by speedy.\m/\m/

Max Coutinho said...

Hello Lord of Astropics!

Wow...a new topic!
"We at Black holes, and when I say we, I mean me, we sounds more important" LOL LOL LOL LOL I hear you! LOL LOL

Now that is impressive, to find a 34,000 years old mammoth! And Bill had its tooth in his hand...awesome!!

Let's give Phoenix some time to find the goodies up at Mars lol...it is taking so long that I can bet that when it finds what we are expecting, it will come with some overwhelming news! Will we be able to handle the truth lol?

Such a cool video, Bob!! And its music is so relaxing...who is it from? It sounds medieval...
I am waiting for the song to finish before I copy paste my comment...*Max closing her eyes*...

I wish you a great week, my friend :D!

Cheers

Anonymous said...

Great story Bob. I was hoping you'd throw in a dead body or two LOL just to give it a macabre twist.

Great job on the video my friend. Excellent music choice. :-)

~JD

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, the lord of astropics thanks max, I am hoping that the Phoenix has something up it's sleeve, right now they are having trouble again with getting the soil into the oven, it's sticking again.

The music is an oldie, it's John Michael Talbot's the Wedding Dance/Psalm 91.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks JD, maybe on my next dig,lol\m/\m/

Moonshadow said...

Bob, in 2005, construction on hwy 54 in Wichita KS was held up when a mammoth tusk was unearthed. See page 2 of this .pdf...
http://www.eastkelloggconstruction.com/PDF's/East_Express_7.pdf

Max Coutinho said...

Bob,

LOL you are welcome, Lord A (from Astropics)!
Poor Phoenix...those are bad news! How will they fix it?

An oldie, yet a great tune! I love Psalm 91...I knew I had a reason to have liked that music :D!

Cheers

Bob Johnson said...

Very cool thanks moonshadow for the link,\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks again max, right now the Phoenix crew are trying different methods of delivery to the ovens to try and fix the problem.\m/\m/

Max-e said...

It must be awesome to find something like that Bob.

kml said...

You just never know who you will meet in this life. I would have had your same reaction - disbelief - it is amazing - what a treat for you!

Texas Travelers said...

Wow!!! I visited the blog site of the guy who stood next to the guy who touched the mammoth tooth.

That's almost like being there.
Thanks for the great story and photos.

Troy

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