The construction site where a wooly mammoth tusk was discovered is shown on Tuesday, February 11, 2014. The construction site is adjacent to the Bright Horizons Childcare and Early Learning facility in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood in the downtown core of the city. The Burke Museum confirmed that the ancient find is a mammoth tusk. (Associated Press/seattlepi.com, Joshua Trujillo)

A Seattle museum official says construction workers have found a tusk from an ice age mammoth.

KIRO-TV reports that the construction workers stopped digging when they found the fossil and called the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.

The museum's Christian Sidor said Tuesday that museum experts have examined the fossil and, in his words, "we are confident that it represents a tusk from an ice age mammoth."

Since the fossil was found recently on private property in the city's south Lake Union area, Sidor says it's up to the landowner to decide what to do with the tusk.

Sidor calls it "a rare opportunity to directly study Seattle's ancient natural history."

According to the museum, the ancient elephant relatives lived in Washington until approximately 10,000 years ago and their fossils have been found throughout western Washington.

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