VOA新闻杂志2024--Miners Find Mammoth Remains Buried in North Dakota

Miners Find Mammoth¹ Remains² Buried in North Dakota

The first person who saw it was working overnight. The worker, a shovel³ operator, saw something white as he placed a large amount of dirt into the back of a truck.

The driver of the truck put the dirt in the road. Another worker operating a bulldozer was ready to flatten⁴ it. But the worker stopped for a closer look when he, too, saw a piece of white.

Only then did the mining workers realize they had found something special: a 2-meter-long mammoth tusk⁵ that had been buried for thousands of years.

A mammoth is a kind of animal that lived in ancient times and had very long tusks⁶. The animal went extinct, or disappeared, about 10,000 years ago in what is now the American state of North Dakota.

The miners unearthed⁷ the tusk at the Freedom Mine near Beulah, North Dakota. The mine produces up to 14.5 metric tons of coal each year.

"We were very fortunate, lucky to find what we found," said David Straley. He is an executive of North American Coal, which owns the mine.

After finding the tusk, the workers stopped digging in the area and called in experts. The experts estimated the tusk to be anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 years old.

Jeff Person is a paleontologist with the North Dakota Geologic⁸ Survey. A paleontologist is an expert on ancient remains. Person was one of the experts that examined the tusk. He said it was "miraculous⁹" that the tusk had not been more damaged, considering the large equipment that miners use at the site.

Another dig at the discovery site found more bones. Experts found more than 20 bones. It is likely the most complete mammoth found in North Dakota, where it is more common to find one mammoth bone, tooth or piece of a tusk.

Person said it is not a lot of bones compared to how many make up the animal's skeleton. But he said, "...it's a lot more than we've ever found of one animal together."

Mammoths once were found across parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Paul Ullmann, a University of North Dakota paleontologist, said mammoth remains have been found throughout the United States and Canada.

The discovery at the mine is somewhat rare in North Dakota and in the area. Many remains of the animals alive during the last Ice Age were destroyed by movements of ice sheets, Ullmann said.

Other areas have produced more mammoth remains, such as in Texas and South Dakota. People have even found frozen mammoth bodies in Canada and Russia, Ullmann added.

The tusk weighs more than 22.6 kilograms and can break easily. Experts covered the tusk in plastic in order to control how fast the tusk loses water. If it loses water too quickly, the bone could break apart, Person said.

The experts covered the other bones in plastic and stored them. The bones will remain in plastic for at least several months until the scientists can get the water out safely. The paleontologists will identify what kind of mammoth the tusk came from later, Person said.

The mining company plans to donate the bones to the state for educational purposes.

"Our goal is to give it to the kids," Straley said.

Words in This Story

shovel – n. a tool with a long handle that is used for lifting and throwing dirt, sand, or snow

bulldozer – n. a powerful and heavy vehicle that has a large curved piece of metal at its front and that is used for moving dirt and rocks and pushing over trees and other structures

tusk – n. a very long, large tooth that sticks out of the mouth of an animal (such as an elephant, walrus¹⁰, or boar)

fortunate – adj. having good luck

miraculous – adj. very wonderful or amazing like a miracle

kid – n. a young person

1 mammoth   

n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的

参考例句：

• You can only undertake mammoth changes if the finances are there.资金到位的情况下方可进行重大变革。
• Building the new railroad will be a mammoth job.修建那条新铁路将是一项巨大工程。

2 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

3 shovel   

n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出

参考例句：

• He was working with a pick and shovel.他在用镐和铲干活。
• He seized a shovel and set to.他拿起一把铲就干上了。

4 flatten   

v.把．．．弄平，使倒伏；使(漆等)失去光泽

参考例句：

• We can flatten out a piece of metal by hammering it.我们可以用锤子把一块金属敲平。
• The wrinkled silk will flatten out if you iron it.发皱的丝绸可以用熨斗烫平。

5 tusk   

n.獠牙，长牙，象牙

参考例句：

• The wild boar had its tusk sunk deeply into a tree and howled desperately.野猪的獠牙陷在了树里，绝望地嗥叫着。
• A huge tusk decorated the wall of his study.他书房的墙上装饰着一支巨大的象牙。

6 tusks   

n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头

参考例句：

• The elephants are poached for their tusks. 为获取象牙而偷猎大象。
• Elephant tusks, monkey tails and salt were used in some parts of Africa. 非洲的一些地区则使用象牙、猴尾和盐。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）

7 unearthed   

出土的（考古）

参考例句：

• Many unearthed cultural relics are set forth in the exhibition hall. 展览馆里陈列着许多出土文物。
• Some utensils were in a state of decay when they were unearthed. 有些器皿在出土时已经残破。

8 geologic   

adj.地质的

参考例句：

• The Red Sea is a geologic continuation of the valley.红海就是一个峡谷在地质上的继续发展。
• Delineation of channels is the first step of geologic evaluation.勾划河道的轮廓是地质解译的第一步。

9 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。

10 walrus   

n.海象

参考例句：

• He is the queer old duck with the knee-length gaiters and walrus mustache.他穿着高及膝盖的皮护腿，留着海象般的八字胡，真是个古怪的老家伙。
• He seemed hardly to notice the big walrus.他几乎没有注意到那只大海象。