Fossil bed preservation support grows

Momentum is building for the creation of a national monument in the northern Las Vegas Valley, one dedicated to the preservation of the fossilized remains of ice-age animals that roamed the area 200,000 years ago.

A nonprofit group, the National Parks Conservation Association, and other advocates for a "new fossil beds national monument" will pitch the idea to Nevada's delegation in the next few weeks. Ultimately, the advocates hope to capture the attention of President Barack Obama.

A national monument designation from Obama could preserve not only the bones of Columbia mammoths, North American jaguars, camels, horses, sloths and bears, but also protect sensitive species such as buckwheat and bearpoppy plants, advocates said.

The designation would benefit the Air Force as well. It would protect a military aircraft flight path from the encroachment of development between Nellis Air Force Base, Creech Air Force Base and the sprawling training ranges north of the valley.

"The idea is for this to be a showcase park to enhance tourism and serve as a work site for scientists," said Lynn Davis of the association's Nevada Field Office.

In a meeting at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Davis and North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck described an urban-area monument with boardwalk access to some of the 500 sites where fossils jut from the Mojave Desert soil.

In a Sept. 28 report, the National Park Service paleontologist Theodore Fremd described the site's "tremendous" potential for scientists. It could have answers to ice-age mysteries, including questions about mass extinctions and climate change "spanning important global climate cooling and warming episodes in the desert Southwest."

Based on a two-day examination, he concluded the continuous soil layers and their fossils are among the longest such stretches on the continent.

The proposed monument would be on 25,000 to 30,000 acres bordering the Sheep Mountain range and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, according to advocates.

Buck said the idea for a national monument was sparked by "citizens who said 'we want this preserved.' "

"We're excited about it, but this is prime land. We're asking for a land swap. We want some industrial land out by the (Las Vegas Motor) Speedway," Buck said.

When asked whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has an appetite for the national monument proposal, his spokesman, Jon Summers, said Reid has heard from thousands of residents who want parts of the upper Las Vegas Wash protected.

"The Bureau of Land Management has been studying this issue for years, and we are eager to see their report, and their recommendations for what areas need to be conserved," Summers wrote in an e-mail. "A fossil bed national monument could be a great recreational and education asset for Southern Nevada, but we'll have to take this one step at a time."

An advocacy group, the Las Vegas Ice Age Park Foundation, has submitted 8,000 signatures to Reid in support of conserving the land for study by university researchers and the State Office of Paleontology. The foundation wants to establish a repository and laboratory for keeping the fossils in Nevada instead of shipping them out of state for study.

"The fact that we're sitting on a world-class paleontological site is huge," said the foundation's president, Helen Mortenson. "We'd like to have it stay here and studied here."

Mortenson noted the proposed monument's educational potential. "It will give a tremendous shot in the arms of kids in schools. They love ice-age animals."

Fremd mentioned the historical significance of the so-called "big dig" that was conducted at the site in the early 1960s. It was the first place where the then-newly discovered technique of radiocarbon dating was put to the test.

He urged protection of the area because some places in the proposed monument have been affected by off-road vehicles that have destroyed mammoth tusks. These are "dramatic and depressing examples of vandalism of the fossil material," Fremd wrote.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.