John Moretti: New Discoveries in Inner Space Cavern reveal the animals of Ice Age Texas

Name: John Moretti: New Discoveries in Inner Space Cavern reveal the animals of Ice Age Texas
Start: 2025-01-11T13:00:00-06:00
End: 2025-01-11T14:00:00-06:00
Location: Phil Hardberger Park Urban Ecology Center

Schedule

Sat Jan 11 2025 at 01:00 pm to 02:00 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

Phil Hardberger Park Urban Ecology Center | San Antonio, TX

Join us as we welcome John Moretti for ""Exploring for Ice Age fossils in the water caves of central Texas".
Since its discovery in 1963, Inner Space Caverns has been famous for its rich abundance of Ice Age fossils. Those fossils represent mammoths, extinct horses, saber-tooth cats, and other animals that went extinct over 11,000 years ago. John is exploring the Ice Age archive preserved in Inner Space Cavern for lessons about how animal communities change over time and how changes in the past led to the animal community of today. His investigations have recovered new fossils of bats, giant jaguars, and tiny antelope-like pronghorn. Research and analysis of those fossils are providing new insights about the origins of the native fauna of Texas and revealing that Inner Space Caverns contains one of the oldest, longest, and most important troves of Ice Age fossils anywhere in Texas. Come learn more about this famous cave and the ancient history of the Texas Hill Country!
John Moretti is a PhD candidate in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin where he studies fossils from the last ~3 million years in western North America as a way to better understand how animal communities change over time and how changes in the past led to the biodiversity of today.
This program is great for Teens and Adults!