Re: Bone Marrow Preserved in 10 mya Fossil

[Tommy Tyrberg <tommy.tyrberg@norrkoping.mail.telia.com>]

At 03:45 2006-07-28, Jeff Hecht wrote:
> I did some digging for a short article to come out in next week's New 
> Scientist.
>
> The fossils actually came from old sulfur mines, and sulfur seeped from 
> the water into the bone, altering the composition of the organics. 
> Apparently the adding sulfur slows decay of the organics. It also stiffens 
> them. The fossils are rigid, not flexible like Mary Schweitzer's T. rex 
> blood vessels.  The bones were intact when fossilized, and the pores were 
> too small to admit bacterial, although they did let water in. They have 
> carbon and organics, but they don't have the specific composition yet. 
> Tests for amino acids and DNA are planned.
>
> I'd bet this had something to do with the preservation environment, but 
> there's a reasonable chance there are other bones with similar 
> preservation. They found the fossil marrow structures in about 10% of the 
> bones they studied. The paper comes out in the August Geology. -- Jeff Hecht

It may seem incredible, but stranger things have happened at 
Konservatlagerstätten. In Geiseltal Eocene frog skin was so well preserved 
that single epithelial cells were easily visible! In that case preservation 
was in coal that accumulated in oxygen-free water that is also thought to 
have been very high in CO2.

Tommy Tyrberg