Paleontologists Excavate 'Incredibly Detailed' Fossils With Preserved Subcellular Structures (unsw.edu.au) 19
Slashdot reader BoogieChile writes:
Details of an important new fossil site has just been published in the first Science Advances journal for the new year. McGraths Flat, in New South Wales, Australia, was once the location of this oxbow lake in a mesic rainforest. Today, superb examples of fossilised animals and plants from the Miocene epoch have been recovered, showing incredible detail, including melanosomes preserved in feathers of birds and the eyes of fossilised fish
"The discovery of melanosomes — subcellular organelles that store the melanin pigment — allows us to reconstruct the colour pattern of birds and fishes that once lived at McGraths Flat," said Dr Michael Frese of the University of Canberra, one of the team's leaders. "Interestingly, the colour itself is not preserved, but by comparing the size, shape and stacking pattern of the melanosomes in our fossils with melanosomes in extant specimens, we can often reconstruct colour and/or colour patterns.
"Over the last three years a team of researchers has been secretly excavating the site, discovering thousands of specimens including rainforest plants, insects, spiders, fish and a bird feather," announced the University of New South Wales: "The fossils we have found prove that the area was once a temperate, mesic rainforest and that life was rich and abundant here in the Central Tablelands," said UNSW Sydney palaeontologist Dr Matthew McCurry [one of the team's leaders]. "Many of the fossils that we are finding are new to science and include trapdoor spiders, giant cicadas, wasps and a variety of fish.
"Until now it has been difficult to tell what these ancient ecosystems were like, but the level of preservation at this new fossil site means that even small fragile organisms like insects turned into well-preserved fossils."
Associate Professor Michael Frese, who imaged the fossils using stacking microphotography and a scanning electron microscope, said that the fossils from McGraths Flat show an incredibly detailed preservation. "Using electron microscopy, I can image individual cells of plants and animals and sometimes even very small subcellular structures," Dr Frese said. "The fossils also preserve evidence of interactions between species. For instance, we have fish stomach contents preserved in the fish, meaning that we can figure out what they were eating. We have also found examples of pollen preserved on the bodies of insects so we can tell which species were pollinating which plants."
"The discovery of melanosomes — subcellular organelles that store the melanin pigment — allows us to reconstruct the colour pattern of birds and fishes that once lived at McGraths Flat," said Dr Michael Frese of the University of Canberra, one of the team's leaders. "Interestingly, the colour itself is not preserved, but by comparing the size, shape and stacking pattern of the melanosomes in our fossils with melanosomes in extant specimens, we can often reconstruct colour and/or colour patterns.
"Over the last three years a team of researchers has been secretly excavating the site, discovering thousands of specimens including rainforest plants, insects, spiders, fish and a bird feather," announced the University of New South Wales: "The fossils we have found prove that the area was once a temperate, mesic rainforest and that life was rich and abundant here in the Central Tablelands," said UNSW Sydney palaeontologist Dr Matthew McCurry [one of the team's leaders]. "Many of the fossils that we are finding are new to science and include trapdoor spiders, giant cicadas, wasps and a variety of fish.
"Until now it has been difficult to tell what these ancient ecosystems were like, but the level of preservation at this new fossil site means that even small fragile organisms like insects turned into well-preserved fossils."
Associate Professor Michael Frese, who imaged the fossils using stacking microphotography and a scanning electron microscope, said that the fossils from McGraths Flat show an incredibly detailed preservation. "Using electron microscopy, I can image individual cells of plants and animals and sometimes even very small subcellular structures," Dr Frese said. "The fossils also preserve evidence of interactions between species. For instance, we have fish stomach contents preserved in the fish, meaning that we can figure out what they were eating. We have also found examples of pollen preserved on the bodies of insects so we can tell which species were pollinating which plants."
Please explain (Score:2)
a team of researchers has been secretly excavating the site
Explain "secretly".
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Please explain (Score:4, Informative)
Explain "secretly".
Excavating takes years and reveals invaluable treasures. You have to keep your mouth shut until everything is safe in a museum.
Re: (Score:2)
That means "privately", and I understand that. "Secretly" means something different.
Field work at McGraths Flat was funded through the generous donation from a descendant of Robert Etheridge
- that means quite a few people were aware of what was going on, and while they had not made the work public before, I doubt "secretly" applies.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they kept it secret because they didn't have permission to dig there...
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Another thing, the actual location where they've been busy digging up a pile of amazingly well-preserved fossils was on Capitol Hill. They just said it was Australia as a distraction.
(In the 1980s we used to make fun of the animated corpses that ran the Soviet Union. Those guys were younger than the two latest leaders of the US).
Re: (Score:2)
Another thing, the actual location where they've been busy digging up a pile of amazingly well-preserved fossils was on Capitol Hill. They just said it was Australia as a distraction.
It is spelled "Capital Hill" and it *is* in Australia. [google.com.au]
Re: (Score:1)
Probably to keep poachers away. Otherwise, they'd have to hire 24/hr guards to work remote terrain.
Re: Please explain (Score:1)
Do they NEED to dig them up? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no way, currently even theorized, to scan fossils from the surface alone. A CT scanner is basically a ring (which you obviously couldn't have). You'd need xrays of incredible power to travel into the ground, even if you could work purely from reflected photons, to get an image of sufficiently high resolution in rock that probably has many, many different boundaries in it.
Now, this does NOT mean they're going to (or have) remove the rock from around the fossils. Once you know there's stuff there tha
Re: (Score:1)
That's my point. Palaeontologists are not doing this, but are instead destroying the very artifacts they hold so important, solely for their personal gain.
They should be stopped.
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Some are: https://www.theguardian.com/sc... [theguardian.com]
In the article on the fossils in Australia, the reports of stomach contents would suggest CT scans were used although it's unclear on whether they were used on completely revealed fossils or fossils left within the rock. So it seems safe to assume they had CT scans. The electron tunneling microscope scans were presumably surface scans, but they'd have to have revealed the surface of some in order to know there was anything there so that in itself is not bad.
However
This lagerstaette... (Score:3)
"They've gone to plaid!" (Score:1)
God should've made them all plaid just to F with the humans. Plaid dino's would be cool.
Re: (Score:2)
~23–5 million years ago