Tonight on PBS' "NOVA" - My Nephew's Camera Work

Tonight, on PBS, the Nova series will cover "An Ice Age Death Trap" - the finding of ancient mammoths and other ice age animals buried in a mud pit in what is now Snowmass, Colorado.  Almost half of the footage used in tonight's program was "shot" by my nephew, Adam Snow.  The following is an excerpt from an article in Real Aspen, published on 31 October 2010, written by Troy Hooper:
"Experts say it is rare to find more than one mammoth at a single site and this is the first one ever in Colorado to contain both mammoth and mastodon fossils. With their huge elephant-like bodies and curved ivory tusks, mastodons resemble mammoths but are only distantly related. The name mastodon translates to “nipple teeth,” in reference to the nipple-like projections on the crowns of their blunt, leaf-grinding molars. Mastodon bodies are stockier than mammoths and their skulls are generally bigger and flatter.
  Before this month's discovery in Snowmass, there have been only three mastodon finds in Colorado. Mammoth finds are more common, with 103 of them occurring in the state prior to Snowmass.
  Museum officials say the juvenile Columbian mammoth may be the most complete mammoth fossil ever found at high elevation in Colorado. The mammoth and mastodon site is at 8,960 feet. The bones are moist and in premium condition thanks to the suffocating peat in which it is buried. The peat bog, likely formed when glaciers retreated from the Brush Creek Valley at the end of the last Ice Age, has prevented oxygen and minerals from turning the bones into stone. Scientists say one of their immediate challenges will be to gradually dry the bones without them cracking or disintegrating.
  The bones are currently estimated to be between 12,000 and 16,000 years old, but paleontologists hope to better pinpoint their age through radiocarbon dating of the specimens and surrounding sediments. They will also attempt to extract DNA from the bones to determine the animals' sex and other data. Scientists are also keen on the ancient plant materials that, like the bones, have been well preserved in peat.
  "One of the great things about living in the American West is that amazing fossils can be found in all sorts of places. The Snowmass mammoth is a perfect example of how alert workers can make discoveries that have great significance," the museum's chief curator Dr. Kirk Johnson said."   

Adam is also the nephew who filmed the Doritos Super Bowl commercial...  The film is very interesting!