Construction workers unearth mammoth tusk in Seattle neighborhood

Construction workers in Seattle’s South Lake Union area managed to unearth the tusk of a mammoth earlier this week. Experts at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington believe the tusk originated from a Columbia mammoth from approximately 16,000 years ago, and it may be the largest tusk ever found in the region.

The massive fossil was found while workers were digging out the foundation for an apartment complex in the Seattle neighborhood. Executive museum director Julie Stein told NPR that paleontologists and graduate students are currently in the process of carefully excavating the tusk, which will eventually go on display. However, unlike the remains and blood of the woolly mammoth discovered in Russia last May, it doesn’t seem likely that the rest of the mammoth will survive the excavation.