Ice Age fossils unearthed during highway project. They’re on display at the Merced Library

The Columbian mammoth once roamed through parts of Merced County thousands of years ago. The woolly beasts stood about 13 feet tall and weighed some 12,000 pounds.

Long extinct, they won’t be found but fossils of some of them and other creatures unearthed during construction of the Plainsburg-Arboleda Freeway Project along Highway 99 in Merced County are on display at the main branch of the Merced County Library.

“There’s something about fossils that is just timeless and maybe that is because you know, we have this, think about our time on Earth and not really related to how long Earth has actually been here,” Merced County Librarian Amy Taylor said.

The library’s collection is comprised of fossilized remains that are roughly 12,000 years old representing extinct early Pleistocene vertebrate faunas from the Quaternary Modesto Formation, Riverbank Formation or the Turlock Lake Formation, she said.

Other fossils included in the collection are from camel, bison, horse and dog. The fossils, which are owned by Caltrans and the State of California, are on loan to the Merced County Library system indefinitely for the purpose of education and to share with the Merced County community.

“It’s an open invitation for us to keep so as long as people are still interested we’ll keep them on display here and share them with the libraries within the county,” Taylor said.

According to Caltrans, nearly 2,000 Ice-Age fossils were discovered during construction of the original State Route 99 Plainsburg-Arboleda freeway project in 2012 near the intersection of Plainsburg and Arboleda roads.

Taylor said she feels the fossil display is important as it creates a connection with the real world and history that occurred during that time period.

“Fossils are important because, well for one, they are totally fascinating for children and children love to read about dinosaurs and to hear about things that happened a long time ago and this just puts a connection with the real world,” said Taylor. “Having them on display, letting them be able to see them and then go explore books and learn more about those that era or things that really interest them. It just makes a connection with real life Instead of things you know only hearing about history, you can actually see history and make that physical connection with it.”

According to Taylor, the fossil displaycan be sent to any of the 11 Merced County Library branch locations to accompany any outdoor programs or discussions on plants or animals from the area.

“A lot of places that you go to see them, they might be molds of them and these are the real things, so you can actually see them and and learn about them and see what they look like,” she said.

Taylor said that when discussing fossils one doesn’t always think about them being local, as there are multiple areas in the state where large excavation sites are in progress.

“These are local to Merced County,” said Taylor. “This is our history and I think that’s what really makes it fascinating. It’s our history.”

This story was originally published September 17, 2024 at 11:00 AM.