By Tim Binnall
A team of marine biologists was understandably amazed when they stumbled upon an ancient mammoth tusk that was sitting on the ocean floor around 180 miles off the coast of California. According to a press release, the strange find was made by a group of scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute during a deep-sea expedition in 2019. As a remote-operated vehicle examined an area of the ocean floor around 10,000 feet deep, it caught sight of a peculiar object that left the researchers scratching their heads as it seemed to resemble an elephant's tusk.
At the time, they were only able to procure a small piece of the oddity, but they subsequently returned to the area this year and managed to extract the entire three-foot-long specimen, which is when the wondrous nature of the find became clear as it was revealed to be a mammoth tusk that is at least 100,000 years old and possibly even double that age. "You start to 'expect the unexpected' when exploring the deep sea, but I’m still stunned that we came upon the ancient tusk of a mammoth," mused MBARI Senior Scientist Steven Haddock. Beyond the out-of-place location where the specimen was found, experts are particularly impressed by the remarkable condition of the ancient object.
"This specimen’s deep-sea preservational environment is different from almost anything we have seen elsewhere," marveled paleontologist Daniel Fisher, who explained that the depth at which the tusk sat allowed for it to be relatively unscathed by the ravages of time. As such, researchers studying the object have been able to extract DNA from the discovery and are working towards painting a proverbial picture of the creature that once sported the tusk. Additionally, by studying the ocean currents, scientists hope to learn from where on land the mammoth originated and how its remains ultimately wound up in the very weird deep-sea resting spot.