Second Mammoth Tusk Unearthed

Construction crews have uncovered a second tusk thought to belong to the same 500,000-year-old Columbian Mammoth discovered Feb. 4 at the future site of the $68 million Thomas Jefferson School of Law in downtown’s East Village.

Paleontologists had previously identified the skull and right tusk, along with a few foot and leg bones, at the law school’s construction site, at 11th and Island avenues.

The left tusk, discovered slightly uphill, measures about the same size as the first one — more than 10 feet.

Paleontologists from the San Diego Natural History Museum are slowly uncovering the remains and taking them to the museum for further study. The museum will eventually put the bones on display.

The find is particularly fitting, Dean Rudy Hasl said, because founding father Thomas Jefferson had an affinity for fossils of the ancient mammals and kept a collection of their bones in the White House.