Iceless Ice Age in the Mojave Desert
The Ice Ages and their impacts on the Mojave Desert will be the
focus of a special lecture at the San Bernardino County Museum
in Redlands on Sunday, October 10, at 2:00 p.m. Museum Curator
of Paleontology Eric Scott will discuss the Mojave Desert as it
appeared during the Ice Ages, more than ten thousand years ago.
The lecture is free with museum general admission.
“People drive through the desert all the time, but are
unaware of how different things would have looked during the Ice
Ages,” says Scott. (Omit second mention of “curator
of paleontology” here). “In this talk, museum visitors
will envision the amazing and wonderful animals and plants that
lived about 10,000 to 500,000 years ago in what is now a vast
desert.”
The Ice Ages were periods of prolonged, dynamic environmental
shifts, and powerful forces at work tens of thousands of years
ago left indelible imprints on the landscape that knowledgeable
visitors to the Mojave Desert can still discern today, Scott says.
“In the Mojave, it was literally ‘Ice Ages without
the ice’,” explains Scott. Freshwater lakes and rivers
once shimmered throughout the Mojave where today one sees only
empty plains and dry stream channels. Scott will describe what
the region looked like during the Ice Ages, and will show actual
Pleistocene fossils from throughout the Mojave to help participants
picture the animals that once lived near those ancient lakes and
streams.
The San Bernardino County Museum is at the California Street
exit from Interstate 10 in Redlands. Admission is $6 (adult),
$5 (student or senior) and $4 (child aged 5 to 12). Children under
5 and Museum Association members are admitted free. Parking is
free, and the facility is handicapped-accessible. The museum’s
Garden Café is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch, snacks,
and beverages. For more information, visit www.sbcountymuseum.org
or call (909) 307-2669 / TDD/TTY: (909) 792-1462.
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