A 33-year-old paleontologist is celebrating a mammoth discovery after finding a four-foot-long tusk in a quarry 90 miles north of London.
Jamie Jordan spied the 450,000 year-old steppe mammoth tusk last week while on a routine visit to a local quarry where he often leads groups on fossil-finding tours.
The incredible find from the last ice age has now been taken to Jamie’s Fossils Galore centre in March, Cambridgeshire, where he will carry out research and preservation.
“I could not believe my eyes,” said Jamie, who found his first fossil when he was four-years-old, but has never found a tusk. “It was sticking out like a sore thumb.”
“They normally get broken up when they are quarried – but this one was in one piece.
“It was just on top of the ground—and very heavy to pick up.”
In its own day, the mammoth would have looked much bigger than a modern day elephant, up to 13 foot tall, and weighing 14 tons.
ALSO SURPRISING: Woman Finds Foot-long Mastodon Tooth From Ice Age on a California Beach
After recovering it from the quarry floor, the tusk was carefully wrapped to transport it– but the Fossils Galore team had to ensure it stayed wet, to prevent it from becoming damaged. They will now spend six months working to preserve the tusk, and then be able to examine it to find out more about the animal’s life.
CHECK OUT: Frightening Relative of T-Rex is Discovered –And Might be ‘Missing Link’ in Tyrannosaur Evolution
“You can learn a lot about the animal by looking at the rings of the tusk—like looking at a tree trunk.
“If the rings are tight, then it shows the habitat was not good, and the food supply was poor. But if the rings are thick, then it shows it had a good habitat.
“We will also look for signs of predation – whether from early humans or other animals.”
Along with the mammoth tusk, the team at Fossils Galore are also working on analyzing a skeleton they found in Surrey in 2017—an Iguanodon dinosaur that lived more than 100 million years ago. In 2008, they also discovered of a nearly complete skeleton of a Plesiosaur.
POPULAR: Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Our Planet Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms
Every summer, Jamie’s centre conducts a range of activities for families, such as fossil hunting and cracking open geodes, that allowing youngsters to get involved and become the paleontologists of the future.
To visit Jamie and find more information, visit FossilsGalore.com.
SHOW Your Friends What to Look For This Summer By Sharing on Social Media…