Ice age mammoth tusk unearthed in Mississippi
Click here for updates on this story
MADISON COUNTY, Mississippi (WAPT) — Scientists have helped to unearth a mammoth discovery in Madison County.
According to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, their geological survey scientists received a message last week from Eddie Templeton, a fossil collector, who had found what he said appeared to be a portion of an ice-age elephant tusk that was exposed in a steep embankment.
With help from the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, Templeton and the state survey team headed out on a quest to recover the fossil before it could be lost forever.
“They found the tusk in amazing condition and was only partially exposed just above the water under a bluff in the alluvium of a small drainage,” MDEQ said in a news release. “It was suspected, based on the strong curvature of the massive tusk that Eddie and the team were dealing with a Columbian mammoth and not that of the more common mastodon. This would be the first of its kind for the area.”
According to MDEQ, Mississippi was home to the mastodon, gomphothere and the Columbian mammoth. Mastodons were the most common in Mississippi, but all three had ivory tusks.
The survey team unearthed the tusk by hand until the 7-foot-long entirely intact fossil was fully exposed.
“This makes it an extremely rare find for Mississippi,” MDEQ said. “Most fossil tusk ivory found around the state are just fragments and most are likely to be attributable to the more common mastodon.”
Scientists believe the animal was leaning against the edge of a sandbar of a stream and possibly died during a major flood.
“The animal likely had died nearby, and its remains were then carried along the stream’s channel,” the release said.
After the fossil was secured, it was taken up a nearly vertical 50-foot bluff, where it was loaded onto a truck and delivered to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science for further study.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
