Cretaceous dinosaur bone contains recent organic material and provides an environment conducive to microbial communities

Fossils were thought to lack original organic molecules, but chemical analyses show that some can survive. Dinosaur bone has been proposed to preserve collagen, osteocytes, and blood vessels. However, proteins and labile lipids are diagenetically unstable, and bone is a porous open system, allowing...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Evan T Saitta, Renxing Liang, Maggie CY Lau, Caleb M Brown, Nicholas R Longrich, Thomas G Kaye, Ben J Novak, Steven L Salzberg, Mark A Norell, Geoffrey D Abbott, Marc R Dickinson, Jakob Vinther, Ian D Bull, Richard A Brooker, Peter Martin, Paul Donohoe, Timothy DJ Knowles, Kirsty EH Penkman, Tullis Onstott
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 2019-06-01
Series:eLife
Subjects:
Online Access:https://elifesciences.org/articles/46205