Mammoths and Earthquakes

During the nineteenth century, mammoth finds were frequent enough in Siberia that some persons became professional mammoth ivory hunters. The tusks were in demand for the manufacture of piano keys and other objects. Since the tusks, and even nearly- complete mammoth carcasses, were found in the ground it was thought by many that the animals themselves lived underground. In parts of China people conjectured that the burrowing of these large beasts beneath the surface was the cause of earthquakes. (If 1976 continues to be a bad year for earthquakes, maybe we better think about setting some mammoth traps.)