How experts defrost a wolly mammoth

By KEITH PERRY

science reporter

Dick Mol's hands trembled with excitement as he began thawing a 24-tonne block of ice dug up from the Siberian permafrost.

As he directed a hairdrier on to the frozen mass, the pungent odour of elephant-style urine, sweat and dung from a 23,000-year-old woolly mammoth suddenly wafted over him.

Moments later, he was able to place a hand on the thawing mammoth's carcass and feel its coarse hair.

It was, he says, the most wonderful aroma that has ever filled his nostrils and a landmark moment in two decades of studying large prehistoric mammals.

Now, having spent 23 millennia locked in the tundra, the 3.3m tall mammoth's carcass is about to give up the secrets of its prehistoric existence.

Mr Mol, a research associate at Rotterdam's Museum of Nature, says it is the first time a mammoth has been recovered in such perfect condition.

Traces of the original flora and fauna still remain in the mud caking its coat.

Mr Mol is in New Zealand for a lecture at the Auckland Museum tonight and to promote a documentary, Raising the Mammoth, produced by the Discovery Channel.

Under the guidance of French explorer Bernard Buigues, the operation to unearth the mammoth began last July when an international team arrived at the site on the Taymyr Peninsula.

Radar imaging was used to find the mammoth under nearly 5m of permafrost.

A trench was dug around the body using pneumatic drills.

Team-members made a harness to hold the huge block of ice during a helicopter airlift.

In April, an international team of scientists will begin examining and dissecting the Jarkov mammoth with the possibility of using its DNA to produce a cloned animal, an aim that most scientists think is unlikely to succeed.

The team hope the mammoth's blood may yield some of the oldest and best-preserved blood cells ever examined.

Previous studies of the frozen carcass of a baby mammoth called Dima revealed it was more similar to the Asian elephant than the African elephant.

"We decided to remove the mammoth complete with its surrounding permafrost to enable us to collect as much data as possible about the way it lived," says Mr Mol.

"The data we will be collecting from plant remains, insects, the mammoth carcass and its internal organs will enable us to reconstruct the mammoth and its environment accurately.

"We also hope to correct the popular belief that mammoths were adapted to the snow-covered Ice Age tundra and in fact lived on a grass steppe, the so-called Mammoth Steppe, which was widespread in the Northern Hemisphere 250,000 years ago."

The scientists were alerted to the remains when nomads belonging to the Dolgan people found a tusk sticking out of the ground.

The mammoth has been named Jarkov, after the family of Genardi Jarkov, the 9-year-old herder who discovered it in 1997.

The family guided the scientists to the remote site two years ago.

After negotiating to buy the tusks in return for new skidoos (motorised snow vehicles) and supplies of sugar, flour and bread, the team began excavations.

Last October, the block of ice was airlifted to the Siberian town of Khatanga.

A study of the mammoth's molars has revealed that it was about 47 when it died. The size of the tusks suggest it was a male.

In April, the block of ice will be placed in a special snow cave where temperatures are a constant minus 15 degrees.

A dozen hairdriers will be mounted on an overhead frame and the researchers plan to melt the ice over a year.

Mr Mol says previous mammoth carcass finds were wasted because researchers tried to defrost the animals as quickly as possible.

They ended up washing away most of the clues contained in the dense coats.

Already, strands of perfectly preserved grass have been found in the Jarkov mammoth's coat.

Researchers using ground radar have detected six other woolly mammoths in the Siberian permafrost.

Another site is believed to contain a woolly rhino.