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Article for Digital Learning Day:
Boy makes a rare fossil discovery in the New Mexico desert
Jude Sparks with the Stegomastodon fossil he stumbled across near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Photo courtesy of Peter Houde, New Mexico State UniversityBy Washington Post, adapted by Newsela staff
Published:08/01/2017Word Count:606
Recommended for:Upper Elementary School - High School
Text Level:4
Jude Sparks was out on a family hike. They were in the desert near Las Cruces, New Mexico. He and his brother were testing walkie-talkies.
That's when the then-9-year-old boy tripped over a rocky mound.
Jude got up to examine what tripped him. There were two large, fossilized teeth sticking out from the ground. Further up, he spotted what looked like an elephant's tusk. Jude was curious.
His brother, Hunter, had been running behind him. At first, he was not very impressed.
"Hunter said it was just a big, fat, rotten cow," Jude told KVIA News, which first reported the story. "I didn't know what it was. I just knew it wasn't usual."
The boys' parents took pictures of the lump. Later that night, they helped Jude look online for someone tell about what he'd found.
They decided to email Peter Houde, a professor at New Mexico State University. He runs a lab that studies dinosaurs.
"I immediately recognized the importance of what it was," Houde told the news station. "We went out there the very next day to have a look at it."
It turned out that Jude was correct: what he'd found wasn't usual at all. It was the fossilized skull of a Stegomastodon. It was thought to be more than 1 million years old.
There are no living Stegomastodons. They were wiped out long ago. They looked similar to elephants. Their two enormous tusks curved upward and stood nearly 9 feet tall.
"We're really, really grateful that (the Sparks family) contacted us," Houde told the New York Times. "If they had tried to do it themselves ... it could have just destroyed the [fossil]," he said.
Studying fossils "really has to be done with great care and know-how," he added.
Carefully Digging It UpIn May, Houde and a team began the weeklong work of digging up the fossil. The bones were so old that they could fall apart as the dirt around them was cleaned away. So Houde and his team uncovered the fossil little by little. They then allowed it to fully dry before applying a hardener.
Little by little, they unearthed a nearly complete skull. All it was missing was one of its tusks.
"It's just been very exciting," said Michelle Sparks, Jude's mother. "Especially for the boys because every child dreams of finding bones and them being actually old."
Jude, who is 10 years old, said that most of his friends still don't believe that he found a million-year-old fossil. Someday, though, he will probably be able to show them the proof. Right now Houde is continuing to study the fossil. He thinks that, in the future, it will be put on display at New Mexico State University's Vertebrate Museum.
"This little boy will be able to show his friends and even his own children: 'Look what I found right here in Las Cruces,'" Houde said.
More Accidental DiscoveriesIt wasn't the first time someone had made such a lucky fossil discovery. In 2014, a group of campers discovered a fossil at Elephant Butte State Park in southern New Mexico. It was a nearly complete Stegomastodon skull. That fossil is now housed at the New Mexico Natural History Museum.
In 2015, a 4-year-old boy named Wylie Brys was exploring land behind a Dallas-area shopping center. He then stumbled onto the fossilized bones of a nodosaur.
Wylie, unlike Jude, might have been too young to appreciate his luck.
"He's a little kid," his father, Tim Brys, told the Washington Post then. "He likes playing in dirt as much as finding the fossils, I think."
Boy makes a rare fossil discovery in the New Mexico desert
Jude Sparks with the Stegomastodon fossil he stumbled across near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Photo courtesy of Peter Houde, New Mexico State UniversityBy Washington Post, adapted by Newsela staff
Published:08/01/2017Word Count:606
Recommended for:Upper Elementary School - High School
Text Level:4
Jude Sparks was out on a family hike. They were in the desert near Las Cruces, New Mexico. He and his brother were testing walkie-talkies.
That's when the then-9-year-old boy tripped over a rocky mound.
Jude got up to examine what tripped him. There were two large, fossilized teeth sticking out from the ground. Further up, he spotted what looked like an elephant's tusk. Jude was curious.
His brother, Hunter, had been running behind him. At first, he was not very impressed.
"Hunter said it was just a big, fat, rotten cow," Jude told KVIA News, which first reported the story. "I didn't know what it was. I just knew it wasn't usual."
The boys' parents took pictures of the lump. Later that night, they helped Jude look online for someone tell about what he'd found.
They decided to email Peter Houde, a professor at New Mexico State University. He runs a lab that studies dinosaurs.
"I immediately recognized the importance of what it was," Houde told the news station. "We went out there the very next day to have a look at it."
It turned out that Jude was correct: what he'd found wasn't usual at all. It was the fossilized skull of a Stegomastodon. It was thought to be more than 1 million years old.
There are no living Stegomastodons. They were wiped out long ago. They looked similar to elephants. Their two enormous tusks curved upward and stood nearly 9 feet tall.
"We're really, really grateful that (the Sparks family) contacted us," Houde told the New York Times. "If they had tried to do it themselves ... it could have just destroyed the [fossil]," he said.
Studying fossils "really has to be done with great care and know-how," he added.
Carefully Digging It UpIn May, Houde and a team began the weeklong work of digging up the fossil. The bones were so old that they could fall apart as the dirt around them was cleaned away. So Houde and his team uncovered the fossil little by little. They then allowed it to fully dry before applying a hardener.
Little by little, they unearthed a nearly complete skull. All it was missing was one of its tusks.
"It's just been very exciting," said Michelle Sparks, Jude's mother. "Especially for the boys because every child dreams of finding bones and them being actually old."
Jude, who is 10 years old, said that most of his friends still don't believe that he found a million-year-old fossil. Someday, though, he will probably be able to show them the proof. Right now Houde is continuing to study the fossil. He thinks that, in the future, it will be put on display at New Mexico State University's Vertebrate Museum.
"This little boy will be able to show his friends and even his own children: 'Look what I found right here in Las Cruces,'" Houde said.
More Accidental DiscoveriesIt wasn't the first time someone had made such a lucky fossil discovery. In 2014, a group of campers discovered a fossil at Elephant Butte State Park in southern New Mexico. It was a nearly complete Stegomastodon skull. That fossil is now housed at the New Mexico Natural History Museum.
In 2015, a 4-year-old boy named Wylie Brys was exploring land behind a Dallas-area shopping center. He then stumbled onto the fossilized bones of a nodosaur.
Wylie, unlike Jude, might have been too young to appreciate his luck.
"He's a little kid," his father, Tim Brys, told the Washington Post then. "He likes playing in dirt as much as finding the fossils, I think."