Pa. Museum displays mastodon and more

ABOUT 12,000 years ago, a hefty 4-plus-ton mastodon took a wrong turn into a bog at what is now Marshalls Creek, near the Delaware Water Gap in northeastern Pennsylvania. The move proved fatal for the animal, but left Ice Age enthusiasts one of the most complete mastodon skeletons in North America.

"It probably wandered into the peat bog, got caught in the bog, died and was found in 1968 when someone was going through the bog," said Howard Pollman, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

That someone was John Leap, owner and operator of Lakeside Peat Humus Co. On July 5, 1968, Leap snagged the mastodon's skull while running an excavating bucket through the company's peat bog as part of routine mining operations. Leap contacted the museum, which gladly took ownership of the remains.

For years, the bones stood incomplete in a cramped display at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. The museum will unveil the mastodon in its entirety today as part of the "Tusks! Ice Age Mammoths and Mastodons" exhibition, which features approximately 80 Ice Age specimens, including the remains of extinct proboscideans - elephantine beasts with great tusks and long, flexible trunks - and other creatures such as giant ground sloths and giant armadillos. The traveling exhibition comes from the Florida Museum of Natural History and explains the range, habitat and habits of these ancient creatures.

"So it gives more background to what we think is the star of the show, the Marshall Creek Mastodon," Pollman said.

A permanent resident of the museum, the mastodon skeleton is noteworthy because it's not fossil, but bone. Peat bogs are acidic and contain very little oxygen, which dramatically slows decomposition, thus preserving the animal's bones.

THE MASTODON, which would have stood about 9 feet tall at the shoulder when it was alive, left a near-complete skeleton, with only some ribs and toe bones missing. The tusks, which decompose faster than bone, were gone as well. The replicated tusks were cast from similar-size mastodons at other institutions.

State-of-the-art reconstruction techniques allow scientists and curators to remove individual bones in the assembled skeleton without dismantling the entire animal.

"Each bone has its own setting, and there are several hundred of them," Pollman said. "Each of the bones is set like a jewel would be in a setting. It's kind of like a very large, strangely shaped jigsaw puzzle."

The person in charge of crafting those individual settings was metallurgist Ken Marshall, the deputy director of museum operations for Phil Fraley Productions of Hoboken, N.J., an exhibit fabrication company. Marshall and 18 others from the museum and Fraley Productions spent a year cleaning, repairing and setting the skeleton.

"It certainly is a 3-D jigsaw puzzle," Marshall said. "We work with the paleontologist at the museum and get the most up-to-date scientific data. Generally, on these kinds of reconstructions, we begin with the pelvis and work our way forward and backward."

Phil Fraley Productions' other projects include "Dinosaurs in Their Time" at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and the Fossil Halls renovation project at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

After the "Tusks!" exhibition closes May 2, the mastodon will move to its new home in the museum's third-floor Hall of Geology, which is currently under renovation. It will be joined by additional fossil specimens and updated dioramas. The gallery is expected to reopen in the fall.

The State Museum of Pennsylvania, 300 North St., Harrisburg, is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for children and senior citizens. For more information, visit statemuseumpa.org or call 787-6778.

Michael C. Upton is a Sunday News correspondent.