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124 W. Main, P.O. Box 550, Crosbyton, TX 79322 (806) 675-7777 (806) 675-2421 (Fax)
WACO SUDDEN DEATH MAMMOTH
Sudden Death Mammoth Painting by Joe Taylor.
In the summer of 2001, the Mt. Blanco team joined by Otis Kline and Bryce Gaudian, molded the third of the three largest molds ever made of a fossil still in the ground. After molding the skeleton of a large female mammoth, which strangely enough never developed tusks, Joe Taylor and crew excavated the bones for Baylor University to protect them from flooding of the site.
Below is a skull from juvenile female held in bull’s tusks. The skull was buried upside down after it floated 10 feet from the body. After petrification, something crushed the bull’s skull. Perhaps a tree grew on top of it and was later pushed over by a storm. Taylor has seen trees in the area do just that.
Assistant Joel Peck (left) and Joe Taylor inches the heavy mammoth skull in its field jacket to work table for restoration.
Skull is moved onto work table (Mt Blanco Museum shop).
Stacey Latimer vacuums away the matrix being removed by the Chicago pneumatic. (right side) Joe and museum volunteer Stacey Latimer removing the field jacket from off of the skull. |
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A pencil-sized jackhammer called a Chicago pnuematic is used to remove the clay and calcium carbonate from the fragile mammoth skull. The matrix has to be carefully removed a fraction of an inch at a time, and the fractured bones hardened with PVA (Polyvinyl acetate). After much of the original clay matrix is removed the skull is ready for molding. |
| Several layers of latex are applied to produce one of the molds. |
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Once the liquid latex has been painted on and cured and the mother molds created and removed the cured latex mold is carefully removed.
The skull is re-jacketed with permanent plaster jackets for safe transit and delivery to the Strecker Museum warehouse near the Baylor University campus. This skull was then shipped to Florida for scientific examination.
SECOND LARGEST MOLD EVER
MADE OF AN IN SITU ANIMAL
Joe and his assistants later returned to the Mammoth dig site in Waco to work on molding in situ and excavating another female mammoth skeleton.
(ABOVE) Latex is applied for molding the mammoth skeleton in situ. (RIGHT SIDE) Joe is making a thin clay wall between parts of the latex mold. |
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In another part of the site the remains of a large camel which was previously uncovered and molded by Taylor. Since then the skull and lower jaws were discovered nearby. Here Joe carefully cleans up the skull to prepare it for molding.
The camel’s front teeth and tusk are at the left. Waco camel molded in situ. Third largest mold in situ. |
While the skull had floated away from the body, the lower jaws were still attached to the skull. This camel appears to have drowned at the same time as the mammoth herd. |
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