Photo by Dana Rene Bowler

From left, Naomi Hopewell, her daughter Amber Hopewell, 6, son Dylan Hopewell, 9, and his friend Diego Garcia, 8, watch Jessie Sadel clean a mammoth bone at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Photo by Dana Rene Bowler

Paleontologist John Minch identifies mammoth bones on a diagram.

Photo by Dana Rene Bowler

Vertebrae belonging to a mammoth found in Moorpark three years ago can be seen in storage at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Using a special microtool, 17-year old Mariana Prestigia of Santa Barbara slowly and carefully picked at the dirt matrix surrounding several bones sitting on a table in front of her.

Prestigia was extra careful with her work for good reason. These bones weren't ordinary everyday bones, but were from the approximately 750,000-year-old southern mammoth found in Moorpark in April 2005.

"It's a little intimidating knowing how old these really are," said Prestigia with a laugh.

Prestigia was among a team of volunteers working on the mammoth bones one afternoon at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

The museum has opened a lab this summer for volunteers over 16 who want a chance to work on the rare paleontological find. Easter Moorman, the museum's marketing and public relations manager, said volunteers, whether they have experience or not, can help prepare the fossil for exhibit with a certified paleontologist.

The bulk of the dirt matrix, the material the bones were found in, had already been removed from around the mammoth bones by Paleo Environmental Associates Inc. in Santa Ana.

But the volunteers in Santa Barbara will be removing the remaining thin matrix, a painstaking process requiring that every side of each bone is specially jacketed while the other side is worked on.

"You have to expose certain parts of the bone, yet provide support for the bone so it doesn't crumble and break apart in the process of cleaning it," said Dr. John Minch, a certified paleontologist overseeing the mammoth preparation laboratory.

After the bones are cleaned, they are identified and an inventory is taken. Missing pieces will have to be reproduced. A special surface coating must also be painted over each bone to protect it.

"The fragile condition and weight of some of the bones are such that I'm not sure we'll exhibit the actual bones. More than likely we'll exhibit casts of many of these to preserve them from damage," said Paul Collins, curator of vertebrate zoology at the museum.

The museum staff hopes to get through half the mammoth skeleton by the end of the summer.

Collins said the public has the opportunity to watch and ask questions as the volunteers and paleontologists work on the mammoth in the outdoor lab.

"It will educate the public about the fact that it's not just finding a fossil and digging it up. There's a lot of other things that go on with the fossil before you get it to the point where it can be stored permanently and it can be accessed for either research or exhibition," Collins said.

He said it also allows the public to see a rare paleontological find up close. He said a southern mammoth, the first species of mammoth to come into North America about 1.2 million years ago during the Pleistocene era, is not common in paleontological collections. The Moorpark mammoth is the second most complete southern mammoth skeleton in North America.

The Moorpark southern mammoth will eventually be displayed in a redesigned and expanded geology and paleontology exhibit hall, which also features the younger pygmy mammoth of the northern Channel Islands.

While the final exhibit could take years to complete, some of the Moorpark southern mammoth bones are already on display in the exhibit hall.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Doug Shore, a 20-year-old volunteer from Arroyo Grande, said he was excited to work on the mammoth. "You can wait your entire life for an opportunity like this, and now I have a chance," he said.

The mammoth preparation lab is open on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays through Labor Day weekend.