Folsom Museum News That Was

The Mammoth tooth described in the article below is on display at the Folsom Museum

The Folsom Idea, July 4, 1891

 A Mammoth Tooth: The Geology of the Country About Folsom

A fragment of the molar tooth of a mammoth weighing over a pound and a half, also small pieces of the tusks, were found a short time ago while excavating for the waste way at the dam for the new lake near Hotel Capulin. Judging from the size and shape of this piece of tooth it must have originally weighed not less than four or five pounds.

The finding of this fossil would seem to settle the question as to the age of the geological formation upon which the town of Folsom is located. It is undoubtedly Quaternary (Pleistocene Ice Age), while the bordering ridges of yellowish grays and stone are supposed to be the "Fucoidal" sandstone, or what the coal miners call the "bed rock" of coal, as it underlies nearly all of the coal fields in Colorado and New Mexico. Good specimens of coal have been found in connection with this sandstone near Folsom, and we see no reason why good paying mines may not be developed here, yet it is a fact worthy of notice that all of the heavy deposits of coal thus far discovered in this part of the country lie southwest of the Denver, Texas & Gulf Railroad and seem to fade out and disappear near that line.

Beneath the "Fucoidal" sandstone lies the marine Cretaceous shale, while overlying all are the immense beds of lava which have poured out from the numerous extinct volcanic craters in the surrounding country. This lava varies from the hard and heavy basalt column as seen in the canyon of Cimarron Park to the light volcanic ash of Twin Mountain and Capulin, such as is now being used with fine effect on our streets.