First complete mammoth tusk found in Mississippi

A complete Columbian mammoth tusk has been discovered in Madison County, Mississippi. It’s the first complete mammoth tusk ever found in the state and dates to the last Ice Age (10,000 to 20,000 years ago), when the 15-foot-tall proboscideans roamed the Mississippi prairies.

Mastodon remains are fairly common in Mississippi, as they were found throughout the region. They were herbivores (like deer) and were able to find food in a variety of environments. Mammoths, on the other hand, strictly grazed on open grasslands, so they only lived on Jackson Prairie in central Mississippi. Mammoth teeth have been found there, marking the lands they once roamed, but their massive tusks are harder to find.

The discoverer, Eddie Templeton, an avid collector of fossils and artifacts, found the tusk on the banks of a creek. He immediately notified the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s Geology Office and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, who traveled to the discovery site that same day. The tusk was partially exposed above the water, and if the team didn’t dig and remove it in time, it was in danger of drying out in the hot afternoon sun.

With Eddie’s help, the team removed the clay-heavy sand around and under the tusks, revealing the seven-foot-long tusks. Most mastodon tusks found so far are only fragments, so this deposit is extremely rare. The team took photos of the tusks and covered them with aluminum foil to protect the surface and prepare for the plaster application. The team then covered the tusks with strips of burlap soaked in plaster to wrap the heavy fossils before transport.

While the plaster crust cured and dried, the team studied details of the depositional environment recorded in sediments exposed in the outcrop where the mammoth tusk was deposited. The base of this massive tusk lies almost upright and at an angle in the fluvial alluvium, with a portion of it lying directly on top of the marine Eocene sediments of the lower Yazoo Formation, just as it did before its burial. Our field scientists interpret the mammoth tusk specimen as resting on the edge of an ancient sandbar in a river, while part of it lay on the bottom of the river channel. This may have occurred before it was completely covered by alluvium and buried the fossil, perhaps as a result of a major flooding event caused by a storm. The animal most likely died nearby and its remains were then washed down the river channel.

Studying the nature of the sediments exposed at the outcrop also provided our team of scientists with some interesting information. The channel gravels preserved at the base of the alluvial deposits are composed primarily of quartz minerals with minor amounts of chert clasts. The fossils are located within the drainage basin of the Big Black River, and quartz gravels like these are more reminiscent of the alluvial deposits from the Pearl River as it passes through the Jackson Prairie area. The thick alluvial surface sediments deposited above the fossils are loess-derived silts. Loess is a wind-blown glacial silt that forms thick deposits over much of the upland terrain in western Madison County.

After the plaster shell dried, the fossil tusk was carefully lifted onto a makeshift wheeled bed modified from an ATV ramp. The fossil specimen in its shell weighed about 600 pounds. It was then slowly lifted up a 50-foot, nearly vertical cliff and loaded onto a truck for further preparation and careful study at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.

The tusk is currently in the care of paleontologist George Phillips, who will remove the plaster coating and allow the tusk to dry. The tusk will then be stabilized and preserved by injecting a bonding agent into the mineralized tusk. The process is slow and painstaking, but once completed, the mammoth tusk will be on display at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.