SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Twenty-five years ago, a Greene County road crew got an emergency order from the federal government to stop work. What happened next changed what is known about the Ice Age.
Discovery followed 9/11 work stoppage
On September 11, 2001, a Greene County road crew was blasting through rock when the federal government ordered all work to stop. Crews first had to set off the explosives already in place. As the dust cleared, crews knew they’d found something big. They called in geologist Matt Forir.
“Had it not been for those events of 9-11. You wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be here,” Forir said.
“The minute we walked in the cave that first day of exploration, we knew it was pretty special,” Forir said. “We didn’t see human footprints on the floor. It hadn’t been entered before by anyone, except for prehistoric animals, which you could see their trackways and claw marks in the cave.”
Oldest fossil cave site in North America
Riverbluff Cave is the oldest fossil cave site in North America. It stays closed to protect what’s inside, but samples have traveled the globe…