Digging Out the Mastodon

In early October 1999 the Oakland Museum of California Natural Sciences Department staff joined Roger Fiddler and his family on the Rustler Ranch to remove the entire fossil. It was a huge job. The original top layer of dirt had been removed with heavy equipment. Now that the surface of the bones was exposed, the next phase of the excavation had to be undertaken very carefully. The goal was to remove the surrounding earth, and then to cover sections of the skeleton in plaster jackets to stabilize and support them for transport to the museum.