Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, April 3, 2006 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Larry Agenbroad

"Out of the Ice: the Excavation and Research of Siberian Frozen Mammoths"

ABSTRACT -- Dr. Larry Agenbroad received an invitation to be the only American scientist included in the multi-national Jarkov Mammoth Expedition to the Taimyr Peninsula, Siberia which opened new horizons in mammoth hunting. The team would excavate the remains of the 23,000 year old Jarkov Mammoth contained in a large block (23 tons) of permafrost and airlift it to an ice tunnel in Khatanga for study in controlled conditions. It was the first such excavation and recovery in history. The project was the subject of the Discovery Channel documentary, "Raising the Mammoth". A second, partial mammoth recovery, the Fish hook Mammoth from the delta of the Taimyr River, was completed in 2001-2. A third recovery of the Yukagir Mammoth was done in 2003-04. This specimen was featured in a cold lab at the World Expo in Aichi, Japan, in the summer of 2006. Non-destructive CATSCAN analyses of this frozen specimen was conducted. All these projects had to deal with extreme weather conditions, governmental restrictions, and the application of new technologies. This talk will discuss the expeditions, the various technologies deployed, and the high-level scientific findings.

SPEAKER -- Dr. Agenbroad was born and raised in Idaho. After high school and military service in the U.S. Navy, he earned four degrees, all from the University of Arizona; B. S. in Geological Engineering; M. S. in Geology; M. A. in Anthropology; Ph.D. in Geology. He has worked professionally as a mine geologist, a petroleum geophysicist, and as a geophysicist-hydrologist on a nuclear test site in Nevada. Upon receipt of the Ph. D., he initiated an Earth Science department at a Nebraska college, and later accepted a position at Northern Arizona University, where he initiated a multidisciplinary graduate program in Quaternary Studies. In 2002 he was awarded an Honorary doctorate of Humane Letters, and in 2006 was awarded the Lowell Thomas Medal for Exploration by the Explorers Club of New York City. He is also the Principal Investigator and Director of the Mammoth Site in Black Hills, South Dakota.