The 30,000-year-old vulture feathers in central Italy were preserved to microscopic levels by volcanic rocks.
Fossilized feathers discovered 136 years ago still reveal new secrets. Researchers found that volcanic rocks that preserve their feathers retain the microscopic details that are preserved within the fossils.
Team Survey –Published Today, in geology – it shows that feathers are preserved in zeolites. This is a preservation mode that has not been reported for soft tissues so far.
“Fossil feathers are usually preserved in ancient mudstones laid in lakes and lagoons,” said Valentina Rossi, a university coke researcher and research author. release. “Fossil vultures are preserved in ash deposits when analyzing fossil feathers.
Rossi told Gizmodo in an email that the discovery “expands what is possible with the fossil record,” saying that cold flows from the volcano are “a very good medium for preserving soft tissue.”
Soft sediments at the bottom of the waters, and in that respect, muddy, non-solid land, can cover dead creatures, prevent them from being cleaned, and maintain their bodies in deep times. However, the preservation of zeolites, aluminium- and silicon-rich minerals, common in volcanic environments, is a new discovery and could mean that more volcanic preserved fossils are in the line.
The feathers belonged to vultures that lived in Italy about 30,000 years ago. The entire animal’s body was preserved in three dimensions, from the bird’s eyelids to the tips of its wings. Ergo: A feathered fossil that is preserved even in the microscopic pigment structure of fossil wings.
“We’re used to it [thinking] These geological environments can include cold deposits that can maintain soft tissue with the same release, said Dawid Iurino, a research coordinator and researcher at the University of Milan.
Certainly, the volatile and extreme conditions of volcanic eruptions are surprisingly good at seizing and preserving the most sensitive tissues in the right circumstances. Last month, a team of researchers confirmed that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy in 1979 devastated and buried nearby towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Volcanoes spit hot gas, ash, and of course when they erupt, often causing fatal effects in the immediate vicinity. The nature of vulture’s conservation is an encouraging sign that better conserved fossils may lie in waiting for paleontologists to discover.
