This is the best summary I could come up with:

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — At first, fossil-hunting diver Alex Lundberg thought the lengthy object on the sea floor off Florida’s Gulf Coast was a piece of wood.

Lundberg and his diver companion had found fossils in the same place before, including mammoth teeth, bones of an ancient jaguar and parts of a dire wolf.

Scientists say they lived mainly in what is now North America, appearing as far back as 23 million years ago.

They became extinct about 10,000 years ago, along with dozens of other large mammals that disappeared when Earth’s climate was rapidly changing — and Stone Age humans were on the hunt.

Mastodons are on exhibit at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, one of the most significant locations in the world for fossils of the bygone era.

Lundberg, who has a marine biology degree from the University of South Florida and now works at a prominent Tampa cancer center, is optimistic he’ll be able to keep the tusk.

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