Extinction

Waco Mammoth National Monument

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While not quite as large as the mammoth site in South Dakota, this is the largest fossil nursery of mammoths in North America. Unearthed by creek erosion, the first bone brought to nearby Baylor University confirmed the mammoth find. There’s now an active dig site enclosed inside a lab building. The rangers answer questions outside, due to Covid. The city of Waco extracts a small management fee, despite this also being a NPS unit.

The ranger explained that there’s some confusion over the term used to describe the mammoths, “Columbian”. First, it’s not Colombian, meaning from the South American country of Colombia. Second, it’s not “pre-Columbian” which is used by anthropologists to describe Native American civilizations in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. It’s Columbian, meaning found in the Americans, either before or after Columbus visited. It’s not known exactly when the last mammoth was extinguished by humans, but we do know that humans will drive a massive wave of species to extinction with our carbon pollution, unless we confront the crisis now.

Petrified Forest National Park

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The Triassic forests are gone, and all that remains are fossils like these. Our climate changes frequently, but extremely slowly. Sudden change is a crisis, because plants and animals lack the ability to adapt or evolve quickly. Hundreds of millions of years ago, this area was an equatorial jungle. The trees were buried by volcanic ash and sediment and soaked in mineral rich waters to fossilize, offering a rare glimpse back before the Jurassic dinosaurs.

The park film explains the distant past, the recent past and current attractions. I hope they improve their camping opportunities, so that visitors spend more time here. I enjoyed my brief time here. But it was difficult to find a car-camping campground in the area, so I moved on too quickly.

Our carbon emissions since the industrial revolution are like an asteroid strike against all life on earth. The Anthropocene, or human dominated age, has been very short, but it will be characterized by extensive global mass extinctions. And unlike a meteor, this time the devastation is entirely by choice. We know that we’re killing the plants & animals that we claim to love. But most of us apparently don’t care enough about the future to make any significant changes to save life on earth.

Click to see my photos of all national park units in Arizona.