Mystery object in mud was ‘entirely intact’ 7-foot fossil tusk, Mississippi team says

A fossil hunter is being credited with “a major fossil discovery” in Mississippi, when he spotted an oddly curved object protruding from the bank of a creek.

Careful digging revealed a complete Ice Age mammoth tusk that measures at 7 feet, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said in an Aug. 9 news release.

The discovery was made Saturday, Aug. 3, in Madison County by fossil collector Eddie Templeton, the state said. Madison County is just north of the state capital of Jackson.

“When Eddie and our State Survey paleontological team arrived to the fossil site, they found the fossil tusk in amazing condition and was only partially exposed just above the water under a bluff in the (silt) of a small drainage,” the department reports.

“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.”

The team invested a day in removing the clay, revealing it was “entirely intact,” despite being at least between 10,000 and 13,000 years old.

“This makes it an extremely rare find for Mississippi,” the department said. “Most fossil tusk ivory found around the state are just fragments and most are likely to be attributable to the more common mastodon.”

The largest Columbian mammoths were around 13 feet at the shoulder, weighed nearly 22,000 pounds and had long, curved tusks that “could easy extend the width of two bicycles laid end to end,” the National Park Service says. They did not have the thick fur associated with the woolly mammoth, experts say.

The fossil was gently covered in plaster and foil to stabilize it before removal, and sediment samples were taken to give insights into the environment that existed when it was deposited, officials said.

Based on the position of the tusk in the creek, the mammoth “likely had died nearby, and its remains were then carried along the stream’s channel.” It was then entombed in silt and clay, “possibly the result of a storm resulting in a major flooding event,” officials said.

The fossil, which weighed nearly 600 pounds after being encased in plaster, is currently at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science “for further curation and careful study,” officials said.

This story was originally published August 9, 2024 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Mystery object in mud was ‘entirely intact’ 7-foot fossil tusk, Mississippi team says."