Triassic · Nevada · Phase 3 Complete
Ichthyosaurs · Random Forest · LiDAR · PBDB · USGS 3DEP
🌊 Project PaleoWave
Two hundred and forty million years ago, Nevada was the bottom of a warm shallow sea.
Random Forest fossil locality prediction for Triassic ichthyosaurs in central Nevada. Trained on the terrain signature of 30 known PBDB localities — elevation, slope, TRI, TPI — and scored every candidate pixel within the TRc formation extent. 50 priority targets, 20 LiDAR terrain analyses, a field report, and a most-wanted list.
Version 3 introduced formation-stratified submodels — separate Random Forests for the north (Prida/Favret) and south (Luning/Gabbs) domains. The south model's LOO recall jumped from 0% to 71.4%.
Megafauna · Split-Ecoregion RF · LiDAR · SGMC Lithology
🦣 Project IceWave
Target E02 was predicted as the #1 east target before any knowledge of existing dig sites. March 2026: active Columbian mammoth excavation confirmed at McBones Coyote Canyon near Kennewick, WA.
Split-ecoregion Random Forest predicting Pleistocene megafauna localities across Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana. West model (Willamette/Puget Sound) and east model (Columbia Basin/Owyhee) trained separately. Features include terrain, lithology score from USGS SGMC, and LiDAR-derived TPI at 15m resolution.
The model predicted mammoth, mastodon, horse, camel, ground sloth, short-faced bear, and Pleistocene bison localities — using the same Missoula Flood slack-water depositional geometry the real animals were buried in.
✓ The Model Called Its Shot
IceWave predicted Target E02 (46.3003°N, 120.1336°W) as the #1 east priority target before any knowledge of existing excavations. The model identified the location based on terrain alone — Missoula Flood valley floor geometry, confirmed by LiDAR TPI of -5.4m.
In March 2026, an active Columbian mammoth excavation was confirmed at McBones Coyote Canyon near Kennewick, WA — within miles of the predicted pixel. Mammoth killed ~17,000 years ago, drowned in a Missoula Flood event, deposited as slack-water receded. Exactly the depositional geometry the model learned to find.
| Source | Latitude | Longitude | TPI | Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IceWave E02 | 46.3003°N | 120.1336°W | -5.4m ▼ | ML model only |
| McBones Coyote Canyon | ~46.30°N | ~120.1°W | — | Active excavation |
| LiDAR DTM confirmation | 46.3003°N | 120.1336°W | -5.4m | USGS 3DEP 15m |
Three methods. One answer.
🌊 PaleoWave — Top 10 (Nevada)
🦣 IceWave — Top East Targets
PaleoWave — Triassic Nevada
240 million years ago, Nevada was the bottom of a warm shallow sea. Giant marine reptiles — ichthyosaurs up to 15 meters long — cruised these waters, hunted, died, and sank into the carbonate mud. Then a continent happened.
Basin and Range tectonics folded and faulted the seafloor into the desert mountain ranges we drive past on I-80. Erosion has been working on those limestone layers ever since, slowly uncovering the bones. Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park found some of them. The Triassic marine formation covers hundreds of square kilometers of central Nevada outback — largely unwalked by paleontologists.
The key insight: fossils don't appear at random. They appear where Triassic limestone is being actively exhumed — basin floors where erosion strips overburden. TRI ruggedness is the single strongest predictor at ~45% feature importance.
IceWave — Pleistocene West
The Missoula Floods were among the largest floods in Earth's history — repeated catastrophic releases from Glacial Lake Missoula that scoured the Columbia Basin and deposited slack-water sediments across eastern Washington and Oregon. Megafauna that drowned in these events were buried in exactly those slack-water deposits.
IceWave targets seven species: Columbian mammoth, woolly mammoth, American mastodon, Pleistocene horse, Yesterday's camel, Harlan's ground sloth, and short-faced bear.
The model splits at -121.5°W — separate Random Forests for the maritime west (Willamette/Puget Sound) and the semi-arid east (Columbia Basin/Owyhee/Basin & Range). Lithology score from USGS SGMC and LiDAR TPI at 15m resolution give the model real depositional environment context.