Recently, according to foreign media reports, an expedition team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute retrieved a 3-foot, about 1-meter-long mammoth ivory from a deep-sea location 185 miles off the coast of California. It comes from a mammoth in Colombia and is estimated to be more than 100,000 years old. Researchers are now studying the tusk, which is remarkably well preserved by the marine environment.
The mammoth was once one of the largest elephants in the world. The last Siberian mammoths became extinct around 1700 BC. The team is trying to figure out how the tusk came up so far offshore by tracking ocean currents, which could help uncover its source. It will also be compared with the DNA of other mammoth specimens.
The scientific team says such specimens offer a rare opportunity to paint a picture of an animal that was once alive and the environment in which it was found to be authentic.