Activity Instructions - Wooly Mammoths > Using Microfossils to Understand Paleo-Climate

(3) What do you know about woolly mammoths?

Below is a photo of a woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, on display in The Museum of Zoology in St. Petersburg in Russia. What does a woolly mammoth mean to you about the climate in the area where it lived?

The stuffed Beresovka mammoth, in The Museum of Zoology, St. Petersburg photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stuffed_mammoth.jpg)

What if we found the remains of a woolly mammoth? What would that tell us about past climate in an area?

Looking at the map of Spain, find the city of Malaga. Using the chart below, what kind of temperatures could you expect in Malaga, Spain today if you were to go on vacation there for the summer, or the winter?

Below is a map of Spain with the distribution of the woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius,where it has been discovered by paleontologists.

Fig. 7. Iberian sites with Mammuthus primigenius remains (from Álvarez Lao (2007)). Padul is represented with a black star. Sites contemporaneous with Padul are represented with black triangles.

Reference:
The Padul mammoth finds — On the southernmost record of Mammuthus primigenius in Europe and its southern spread during the Late Pleistocene
Diego J. Álvarez-Lao, Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke, Nuria García and Dick Mol
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
Volume 278, Issues 1-4, 15 July 2009, Pages 57-70
doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2009.04.011

6. Calibrated radiocarbon dates from Padul and other Iberian woolly mammoth sites from the same chronological range ([Roucoux et al., 2005] and [Álvarez Lao, 2007]).

Reference:
The Padul mammoth finds — On the southernmost record of Mammuthus primigenius in Europe and its southern spread during the Late Pleistocene
Diego J. Álvarez-Lao, Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke, Nuria García and Dick Mol
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
Volume 278, Issues 1-4, 15 July 2009, Pages 57-70
doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2009.04.011

This chart (above) shows the ages of these woolly mammoths in the Iberian Peninsula ranging from about 30,000-45,000 years ago.

Fig. 8. Sketch of global maximum distribution of the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) during the Late Pleistocene (mapping: R.-D. Kahlke, with the benefit of information provided by the references given in the text).

This chart (above) shows the global maximum distribution of woolly mammoths during the Late Pleistocene. Notice that the woolly mammoth has been found in North America, specifically in areas of the United States. What does this say about paleo-climate and possible migration routes at this time?

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Activity Instructions - Wooly Mammoths > Using Microfossils to Understand Paleo-Climate