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Mastodon Tusk Over 100,000 Years Old Recovered Near Miramar for Museum Conservation

The Notiomastodon specimen from Centinela del Mar is now being prepared at Miramar’s municipal museum for future public display.

Overview

  • Museum teams extracted a slightly curved tusk exceeding 1.5 meters from Quaternary coastal sediments within the Centinela del Mar Reserve, about 50 km south of Miramar.
  • The fossil is identified as Notiomastodon platensis, a Pleistocene gomphothere comparable in size to modern Asian elephants.
  • Reported age is based on the sedimentary context at more than 100,000 years, with detailed laboratory dating and analyses yet to be disclosed.
  • The recovery was led by the Museo Municipal de Ciencias Naturales de Miramar with volunteers, alongside specialists from Mar del Plata’s Lorenzo Scaglia museum and support from the Félix de Azara foundation.
  • Field operations used the Estación Científica Eduardo P. Tonni as a base, and the tusk is undergoing cleaning and conservation before joining the museum’s permanent exhibition.