A NASA satellite image shows Lake Mead in 2000. (NASA)

Springs and marshes in a desert near Las Vegas , according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study that offers a never-before-seen view into the past and how climate change can affect sensitive ecosystems.

Evidence found on exposed dirt and rocks in the desert just outside the city limits shows drastic contraction and expansion of desert wetlands in response to each period of rapid climate change. In cases where conditions became too warm, there are signs of saturated wetlands drying up completely, some for centuries at a time. The ability to read and analyze this information will allow a groundbreaking look into how climate change can affect delicate desert ecosystems.

“This is a story of water,” said Kathleen Springer, the lead scientist and principal investigator for the study and a geologist with the USGS and former Senior Curator at the San Bernardino County Museum. “Water was plentiful in the desert at times in the past, but when climate warmed, springs and wetlands dried up, and the plants and animals living in the harsh desert environment were out of luck.”

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During the Pleistocene epoch, which spanned 10,000 to 100,000 years ago, the area just north of Las Vegas was littered with saturated land. The moisture attracted an array of ice age animals, including mammoths, sloths, saber-toothed cats, wolves, and extinct species of horse, bison, and camel. However, the existing wetlands that remain today are home to several threatened and endangered species that rely on the water in the mostly parched ecosystem. With a climate capable of shifting so rapidly, the fate of those species hangs in the balance.

Springer explains the same type of climate shifts we’re experiencing today mirror what’s being seen in the geologic records being studied, stating that although the California drought is severe, “droughts are an inherent part of the climate system and have occurred repeatedly in the past."

This drought, however, has been one for the ages, and a look at Lake Mead’s water levels will make that pretty obvious. The largest reservoir in the US when full, , when the Lake Mead Water Database last posted measurements, had dropped down to just over 1,000 feet above sea level, , an Arizona Republic report states.

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In September, , according to CBS News.

The studies focusing on the effects of climate change on desert wetlands and springs will continue through the USGS’s Climate and Land Use Change Research and Development Program, building upon the investigations of the Las Vegas Valley, a large portion of which is now protected as Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument.

“The future of this newly designated national monument and what it can tell us about the effects of climate change is all about the past,” Springer said. “And the past is the key to the present.”

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The ruins of a school in Mormon pioneer town of Saint Thomas. (Getty Images/David McNew)