| Porthole 26 Nov 21

A mammoth tusk has been recovered from an unlikely place: the bottom of the ocean.

While it might not be as cool as a message in a bottle, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute scientists were shocked to discover the tusk, belonging to a Columbian mammoth, 24 kilometres off-shore and more than 3,000 metres deep.

The find was first made in 2019, but back then, the researchers were only able to collect a small sample.

However, this past Jul, they returned, when the full weight of the stunning find was revealed to the world.

“Mammoths have been retrieved from the ocean, but generally not from depths of more than a few tens of metres,” a researcher said.

The cold, high pressure environment helped to preserve the tusk, so it can be studied in greater detail, which will no doubt be a mammoth task.