When you're exploring the ocean, you wouldn't expect to find the remains of a Columbian Mammoth, but that's what one group of researchers found off the coast of California! In today's blog you'll read about the finding, and learn about Columbian Mammoths.
Randy Prickett (left) pilots MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Doc Ricketts while Senior Scientist Steven Haddock (right) documents the mammoth tusk before beginning the retrieval operation. Image: Darrin Schultz © 2021 MBARI Researchers recover ancient mammoth tusk during deep-sea expedition
Researchers recover ancient Columbian mammoth tusk during deep-sea expedition
For more than three decades, MBARI has been exploring the deep waters off the coast of central California. During an expedition aboard the R/V Western Flyer in 2019, ROV pilot Randy Prickett and scientist Steven Haddock made a peculiar observation.While exploring a seamount located 300 kilometers (185 miles) offshore of California and 3,070 meters (10,000 feet) deep, the team spotted what looked like an elephant’s tusk. Only able to collect a small piece at the time, MBARI returned in July 2021 to retrieve the complete specimen. Now, Haddock and researchers from the Paleogenomics Lab, UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), and the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan (U-M) are examining the tusk.The researchers have confirmed that the tusk—about one meter (just over three feet) in length—is from a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi). The cold, high-pressure environment of the deep sea uniquely preserved the tusk, giving researchers the opportunity to study it in greater detail. Computed tomography (CT) scans will reveal the full three-dimensional internal structure of the tusk and more information about the animal’s history, such as its age. “You start to ‘expect the unexpected’ when exploring the deep sea, but I’m still stunned that we came upon the ancient tusk of a mammoth,” said Haddock. “This specimen’s deep-sea preservational environment is different from almost anything we have seen elsewhere,” said University of Michigan paleontologist Daniel Fisher, who specializes in the study of mammoths and mastodons. “Other mammoths have been retrieved from the ocean, but generally not from depths of more than a few tens of meters.” The team believes it could be the oldest well-preserved mammoth tusk recovered from this region of North America. The UCSC Geochronology Lab analyzed radioisotopes that showed the tusk is much more than 100,000 years old. “Our age estimate on the tusk is largely based on the natural radioactive decay of certain uranium and thorium isotopes imparted to the tusk from the ocean. If the tusk had been found on land, deciphering its history would not be as straightforward.
(Illustration of Columbian Mammoths. Credit: National Park Service).
WHO WERE THE COLUMBIA MAMMOTHS? - The U.S. National Park Service provided a great summary of the Columbian Mammoths.
The Columbian Mammoth was so tall a person would need to stand on the second floor of a building to touch its head, and weighed the same as five cars stacked on top of each other. It also boasted large tusks that could easy extend the width of two bicycles laid end to end. Unlike its cousin the Woolly Mammoth. The Columbian Mammoth did not have much fur. North America was generally warmer than the Woolly Mammoth’s homeland of Eurasia.
The Columbian mammoth did share some similarities with modern elephants. They may have lived in herds like elephants, as some fossil sites suggest. Based on our knowledge of elephants, the Columbian mammoth might have lived up to 65 years. Both mammoths and elephants also share similar ridged teeth, good for chewing plants. These teeth grew in sets, with new teeth replacing old ones as the animal aged. These ridged teeth were used to grind grasses, brush, trees, and woody plants. Like modern elephants, mammoths would have had to eat a lot of this food each day to fuel their large bodies. Columbian mammoths most likely spent most of their day eating hundreds of pounds of food.
The large appetite of mammoths drew them to the grasslands and abundance of green and lush vegetation. The Columbian mammoth went extinct between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The Columbian mammoth did share some similarities with modern elephants. They may have lived in herds like elephants, as some fossil sites suggest. Based on our knowledge of elephants, the Columbian mammoth might have lived up to 65 years. Both mammoths and elephants also share similar ridged teeth, good for chewing plants. These teeth grew in sets, with new teeth replacing old ones as the animal aged. These ridged teeth were used to grind grasses, brush, trees, and woody plants. Like modern elephants, mammoths would have had to eat a lot of this food each day to fuel their large bodies. Columbian mammoths most likely spent most of their day eating hundreds of pounds of food.
The large appetite of mammoths drew them to the grasslands and abundance of green and lush vegetation. The Columbian mammoth went extinct between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago.
FULL STORY OF THE DISCOVERY: https://www.mbari.org/mammoth-tusk-discovery/?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter
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