Carvers & Collectors Cash In As Melting Arctic Reveals Bonanza Of Bones & Tusks - SMH

One day, climate change could cost the earth. For now, it is a nice little earner for Russian hunter Alexander Vatagin. In Siberia's northernmost reaches, high up in the Arctic Circle, the changing temperature is thawing out the permafrost to reveal the bones of prehistoric animals such as mammoths, woolly rhinos and lions that have been buried for thousands of years. Private collectors and scientific institutes will pay huge sums for the right specimen, and bone-prospectors such asVatagin have turned this region, eight time zones from Moscow, into a palaeontological goldmine. "Last year someone was paid 800,000 roubles <$37,000> for a mammoth head with two tusks in great condition," Vatagin said.

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Prehistoric bones are not very hard to find, he says. The permafrost is thawing and breaking up so rapidly that in certain places in the tundra bones poke out through the soil every few metres. Some just lie on the surface. Vatagin pays between $10 and $190 for a kilogram of mammoth bones. But it takes a keen eye and local knowledge to find the really valuable stuff.

Tusks, sometimes curled almost into a circle and reaching up to five metres in length, are the most prized finds. A pair of good tusks is a rarity; two tusks and a well-preserved skull can be worth a fortune. "If he is lucky, a local can earn 200,000 roubles in just one day," said Vatagin, who wears a massive silver ring with a mammoth's head engraved into it.

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Davydov acknowledges that rising temperatures in Siberia have been a boon for bone collectors. "As the permafrost thaws, we obtain yet more objects for study," he says. But then he reflects: "From the point of view of humanity, it would have been better if this had never happened.".

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http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/making-a-mint-from-artic-mammoths/2007/09/19/1189881559357.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Too bad the bones have been exposed, but it goes to prove that some good can come from bad.

A shame any ancient DNA is being defrosted and spoiled.

:puke:

> One day, climate change could cost the earth.
> For now, it is a nice little earner ...

The majority view of climate change in a nutshell.

:grr:

Of course, if he was *really* an entrepreneur, he'd be taking advantage
of the next market: carved human bones. If he gets in now while things
are still novel and premium priced then he can get out again before the
market is flooded with the coming oversupply of raw materials.

:think: