Join us as we welcome John Moretti for "Exploring for Ice Age fossils in the water caves of central Texas".

Ice Age fossils from the Edwards Plateau played a key role in helping scientists understand the extinction of mammoths, saber-tooth cats, and other megafauna. Those fossils were collected from dry caves across the region and they documented the widespread presence of extinct bison, horses, camels, and mammoths all living in an Ice Age grassland.

Another class of caves - water caves - have never before been investigated by paleontologists. Exploration of these underground rivers is revealing exciting new discoveries of extinct Ice Age giants that reveal an entirely different chapter of the natural history of central Texas. In this talk, John will provide an introduction to Texas water caves, the challenges of working in those caves, and his latest fossil discoveries!

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!