Monumental Mammoth

The park preserves a stretch of the upper Las Vegas wash, where a Pleistocene-era verdant habitat once supported now-extinct ground sloths, American lions, and camels. The abundance of bone deposits spurred a long trail of scientific inquiry, headlined by the 1962–63 “Big Dig”, the largest interdisciplinary scientific expedition of its kind up to that time. Established through Nevada's “Explore Your Nevada Initiative,” the expanse frames both early paleontological fieldwork and the Ice Age environment that produced it.