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…
I think the Sci-Fi Channel already did that movie…;)
THEM! had more appeal. Even though they filmed the desert sequences out in the Mojave and claimed it was New Mexico.
(collected trilobites when I was a kid in the Marble Mountains in Cali)
Anyways, that’s exactly why the WIPP site was selected. Also because the salt will slowly flow and encase the radioactive stuff when they seal off rooms, iirc. The stuff they store there is really low level stuff. Guessing, I’d bet that a coal power plant puts out more radiation per year than if you were to burn everything put in WIPP.
The WIPP used to be a huge source of FUD generated by the Meanie Greenies in NM. Is it still?
Hi Will -
Haven’t heard too much about WIPP lately…I think Yucca Mountain stole a lot of its thunder. The last I remember was some ruckus about the train and/or trucking routes used to ship the containers to WIPP and where they passed close to residential areas, but that was years ago. Seems like I recall many more stories back when I first moved to NM in ‘96.
For me, the biggest tragedy was that none of these plans were chosen for implementation. I was actually kind of jazzed to think that some of my tax dollars would be funding projects meant to be intelligible 10,000 years from now.
Rushmore might last that long. Might. IDK what else we Yanqi have produced that will.
Yucca Mountain has been a real problem child since when I was living in Los Alamos…and that was last in 1992.
oy.