It came from WIPP
10:34 pm
From Will Baird I learned of this story of 253 million year-old biological material recovered from subterranean salt deposits near Carlsbad. The material was found by analyzing the contents of microscopic bubbles in salt and halide crystals from the site of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a repository for low-level radioactive waste deep beneath the southeast New Mexico desert.
According to Wikipedia, the WIPP site was chosen, in part, because the salt deposits have remained relatively stable since they precipitated from a receding Permian sea, over 250,000,000 years ago. Presumably, the same stability helped preserve the earliest direct evidence of biological life—nearly four times the age of the previous record holder: traces of protein from 68 million year-old T. rex fossils.
Cellulose microfibers, from the UNC News press release.
Cellulose microfibers were the most abundant biological materials found, although the article tantalizingly mentions that some evidence of ancient DNA was “observed.”
Now a quarter-billion year-old bit of biomass is pretty darn nifty, and since the research is published in April’s issue of Astrobiology it leads to some interesting ideas about the possibility of finding durable bio-molecules preserved in salt deposits on other worlds. But I think there’s far greater potential for speculation here. I mean, we’ve got Paleozoic biology in proximity to low-level radiation. Forget the atom-bomb triggered monster ants of THEM!—imagine a pickled monuran, revivified and grotesquely enlarged by the careless placement of a used radiation suit, leaping out across the desert as it attempts to satisfy 250 million years worth of salt-cured hunger…
