Presenting the fascinating story of extinct mammoths, mastodons, and their tusked relatives that roamed much of North American from 15 million to 10,000 years ago.

Tusks! invites you on a journey that follows fossils from the field to the laboratory, and to a museum exhibition.

This exhibit features The State Museum's Marshalls Creek Mastodon, discovered in Marshalls Creek (Monroe County), Pennsylvania.

The Marshalls Creek Mastodon

THE MARSHALLS CREEK MASTODON

The Marshalls Creek Mastodon will be the highlight of the upcoming Tusks! exhibit.
Staff from Phil Fraley Productions, Inc. are assembling the Marshalls Creek Mastodon skeleton on a framework of steel that will support the skeleton. The Marshalls Creek Mastodon will be on display in the Tusks! exhibit from January 24 until May 2, 2010. Then it will be moved to a major new section of the third-floor Hall of Geology, which will open in fall, 2010.

Staff from The State Museum of Pennsylvania excavated the Marshall Creek Mastodon from a peat bog in Marshalls Creek in 1968. Nearly 90% of the mastodon skeleton was retrieved. Only a few of the bones were missing, and some other bones were damaged. The damaged bones have been restored, and missing bones have been replaced using casts from a similar-size mastodon.

For over 35 years, only half of the Marshalls Creek Mastodon was on display in the Hall of Geology for visitors to see. The other half (the right side) was stored in the collections of The State Museum. This exhibit will bring the entire skeleton together for the first time in a state-of-the-art mount. Restored in a life-like pose, and properly conserved for the first time, this skeleton ranks as one of the most important mastodon specimens known from North America.

Click here to download a .pdf of the Educator's Guide

THE STATE MUSEUM OF PENNSYLVANIA'S
BUY-A-BONE CAMPAIGN
Be part of The State Museum of Pennsylvania's exciting new installation of one of the most complete mastodon skeletons ever found in North America.
Click here for more information.

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