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A geomorphologist, a scientist who studies how landscapes change over time, was surveying a San Mateo County creek for signs of frog habitat when she spotted what looked like an oddly shaped rock.
It was a molar from a Pacific mastodon. The paleontologist brought in to examine it says the specimen is likely between 50,000 and 100,000 years old, far older than the figure circulating in most early reports.
Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist with Balance Hydrologics, found the tooth in a creek inside a Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District preserve in San Mateo County, California.
Her survey was focused on improving habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog. Lynch, describing her years of field experience as a geologist, said she had never encountered anything this exciting.
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