kenb
Bronze Member
Girl, 9, discovers mammoth fossil in Allen
08:23 AM CST on Thursday, March 6, 2008
By Jonathan Betz / WFAA-TV
ALLEN - A nine-year-old North Texas girl recently made an historic find while outside near her home.
Alison Dodd was playing in a creek near her Allen home when she said she stumbled across what she thought was a rock. The item that caught her eye turned out to be something an archeologist would love to happen upon - a fossil.
Dating back at least 10,000 years when prehistoric beasts roamed the area, the so-called rock turned out to be a wooly mammoth's tooth.
"We've always kind of joked that she has a real eagle eye," said Mark Dodd, Alison's father. "... There are paleontologists and archaeologists that search these things out and may go a lifetime without finding them, and here our nine-year-old explorer finds it on her third trip to the creek."
Mr. Dodd brought the tooth to the Heard Natural Science Museum in McKinney, which has a similar fossil on display.
"They have found lots of them, but the chances of you and I finding one are extremely rare because they're just not around," said Roger Sanderson, the museum's curator.
The fossil is so uncommon that in some cases it can sale for hundreds of dollars. However, Alison said she has no plans to sell the tooth. Instead, it sits proudly on display in her parent's home.
"I really thought it was cool that it was something from a long time ago," she said.
Despite her eagle eye, the fossil find hasn't motivated her to make a final decision to become an archaeologist.
"I might want to," she said. "There are just so many things I want do. I might do that."
kenb
08:23 AM CST on Thursday, March 6, 2008
By Jonathan Betz / WFAA-TV
ALLEN - A nine-year-old North Texas girl recently made an historic find while outside near her home.
Alison Dodd was playing in a creek near her Allen home when she said she stumbled across what she thought was a rock. The item that caught her eye turned out to be something an archeologist would love to happen upon - a fossil.
Dating back at least 10,000 years when prehistoric beasts roamed the area, the so-called rock turned out to be a wooly mammoth's tooth.
"We've always kind of joked that she has a real eagle eye," said Mark Dodd, Alison's father. "... There are paleontologists and archaeologists that search these things out and may go a lifetime without finding them, and here our nine-year-old explorer finds it on her third trip to the creek."
Mr. Dodd brought the tooth to the Heard Natural Science Museum in McKinney, which has a similar fossil on display.
"They have found lots of them, but the chances of you and I finding one are extremely rare because they're just not around," said Roger Sanderson, the museum's curator.
The fossil is so uncommon that in some cases it can sale for hundreds of dollars. However, Alison said she has no plans to sell the tooth. Instead, it sits proudly on display in her parent's home.
"I really thought it was cool that it was something from a long time ago," she said.
Despite her eagle eye, the fossil find hasn't motivated her to make a final decision to become an archaeologist.
"I might want to," she said. "There are just so many things I want do. I might do that."
kenb
i will show you the tooth we found panning for gold. I always wondered if it was a tooth from a mammoth. Some remains of them have been found in the area...aa
