Scuba divers find mastodon tusk fossil that could be 1 million years old off coast of Florida

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Scuba divers made a truly prehistoric discovery off the coast of Venice Beach in Florida: a large mastodon tusk.

The 4-foot, 60 lbs. mastodon tusk was found by Blair Morrow and Alex Lundberg about 25 feet underwater, WWSB-TV reports.

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"I swim over to it and start fanning it and all of a sudden there's a huge section of it exposed and I'm just thinking to myself, oh my God, this is a tusk," Lundberg said.

After finding the fossil, which could be 1 million years old, he got some help from Morrow to bring it up to the surface.

"I just show her this four foot tusk and her eyes just light up," he said. "She comes up with me to the surface, we swim it to the boat. We made a sling out of a beach towel and kind of hoisted it over the side of the boat. It's absolutely surreal that it came up in one piece, didn't break apart at all," he said.

Lundberg said the area around Venice Beach is known for shark teeth, but there is a whole other world down there.

He said he's been diving off the coast of Venice for around five years and will be out there again this weekend with hopes of finding another treasure.