Students dig around the tooth, exposing it and the earthen pedestal it rests on.
The exposed tooth is covered with aluminum foil and then plaster to preserve it as best as possible. Here, Fisher and Mahoney work on dislodging it from its setting. On a recent hot afternoon in Bidwell's Upper Park, Vic Fisher, Geosciences, led students to the side of a dry stream, down a steep path, dusty and strewn with loose rock. Stopping a little over half-way down, the students hauled picks, shovels, chisels, screwdrivers, brushes, water, plaster of Paris, aluminum foil, and rope to a ledge where three small ridges rose from the dirt. On an earlier field trip for a stratigraphy class, students exploring the sequencing of the strata brought a piece of rock to Fisher, asking him what it was.