A brand-new state park finally opens in Nevada.
Seven years in the making, Ice Age Fossils State Park will open its doors on January 20. The park is situated on the northern edge of the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The park begins where the suburb of North Las Vegas ends and gives way to the desert.
Nevada residents and fossil enthusiasts have been waiting a long time to enjoy the state’s newest state park. Following funding issues, a global pandemic, and construction delays, their wait is over. Ice Age Fossils State Park will be the latest addition to the state park system in Nevada, joining the other 20 state parks in the system managed by park authorities there.
“Ice Age Fossils State Park construction is nearly finished,” declared Nevada State Parks on its website. “The Park will be open to the public beginning January 20, 2024.”
The new 315-acre park is both scenic and educational.
A slick video produced by the parks authority and posted to the agency’s website shows trails winding through a dusty, rocky landscape decorated with desert vegetation. This landscape was once a lush savanna somewhat akin to the Serengeti. The remaining fossils are evidence that the location once teemed with biodiversity, a past home to long-extinct species of mammoths, lions, giant ground sloths, and more.
The fossils sparked an archaeological frenzy in the 1960s. As the state website recalls, “the discovery of abundant fossils on site triggered a long history of scientific research, which includes the famous ‘Big Dig’ of 1962-3, the largest inter-disciplinary scientific expedition of its kind up to that point.”
Marshes fed by glacial meltwater during the most recent Ice Age created the verdant environment that sustained several species of large mammals and other megafauna. With the end of the last Ice Age came a drying and desertification, along with the extinction of most of the regions’ species some 12,000 years ago.
There is strong evidence that humans greatly contributed to the extinction of many North American megafauna species at the end of the most recent Ice Age. Research into the human contribution of Pleistocene-era species extinctions has been conducted at great length at Ice Age Fossils State Park.
“It’s not just a story about the Ice Age animals,” said Josh Bonde, director of research at the Nevada Science Center, in the Nevada State Parks video. “It’s also a story of science and the history of science.”
The creation of Ice Age Fossils State Park was first announced by former Governor Brian Sandoval in January 2017. The construction work added a visitor center, a picnic area, and three hiking trails.
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Park Info
Park Name:
Ice Age Fossils State Park
Location:
Nevada, USA
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