April 29, 2004

The Utah Geological Survey (UGS) will be honoring Ice Age fossil finders and contributors on May 6, 2004 at 2:00 p.m. during a special presentation at the Utah Core Research Center, 240 North Redwood Road, Salt Lake City. Two of the fossil finders to be honored are local teenagers.

Ice Age Teaching Kit.

While on a boyscout outing, Tobin Worner, a sophomore at Riverton High School, found a Mammoth vertebra on the shores of Bear Lake in 2003. Wendy Whitehead, a junior at Tooele High School, discovered a Musk Ox horn near her home in 2001. Casts of both fossils were made and are included in the new UGS Ice Age Teaching Kit. The original fossils will be housed at the Utah Museum of Natural History.

Both landforms and fossils are windows on Earth history and help provide us with a better understanding of environmental change. As citizens become more aware of this heritage, they know to alert the scientific community if they find a fossil. Such was the case for Worner and Whitehead, providing a more complete record of the Ice Age past.

The new Ice Age Teaching Kits are available to Utah’s teachers on a 2-week to 1-month loan with a $25 refundable deposit and must be picked up and returned to the UGS office is Salt Lake City. Click here for more information about these kits.