Fossilization of bone

As is well known, the karstic forms of the limestone mountains of Hungary developed during the Pliocene and the Pleistocene, and the filling up, multiple secondary limestone deposition and high lime content render them superbly suited for fossilization of bone remains. Especially important are the smaller caves, fissures and hollows, since these are the karstic formations which have preserved the vertebrate remains of the geohistorical phase we are most interested in, and these are the finds on which a microstratigraphical series unique in Europe could be based. 

The approach proposed to check the preservation of isotopic signals in fossil vertebrate bones and teeth is appropriate not only for Pleistocene cold and temperate areas, but also during geological periods before the... 

Nurse I d like to mention a sort of half-relevant observation in coelocanths, the fish that are living fossils. When people looked at pre-Devonian fossils of these fish from 300 million years old, the cell size in sections of the fossilized bone was as much as 10 times smaller than the modern fish. The idea was that the fish have accumulated more DNA and the cells have got bigger, but the form of the fish has remained the same. 

Hare, P. E., Organic Geochemistry of Bone and Its Relation to the Survival of Bone in the Natural Environment, In Fossils in the Making Vertebrate Taphonomy and Paleoecology, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1979. 

Fluorine in Plants and Animals, In 1802 Domenico Pini Morichini discovered the presence of fluorine in fossil ivory (157). He later detected it in the enamel of the teeth, and Berzelius soon confirmed the discovery and showed that fluorine is also a normal constituent of bone (158,159, 165). The presence of excessive amounts of fluoride in drinking water causes the well-known mottling of the enamel of children s teeth (160), but small amounts of fluoride protect the teeth from dental caries (161). 

The amino acid racemization method is based on the measurement of the degree of racemization acquired by a material expressed as the ratio dextro amino acid (D) enantiomeric form/levo amino acid (L) enantiomeric form, which is an indicator of the age of the object. This method has been applied in fossil shells, bones, teeth, wood, plant remains, and coral [68]. 

Chemistry is a foundation for many other disciplines, (a) Biochemists analyzing DNA profiles, (b) Meteorologist releasing weather balloon to study the chemistry of the upper atmosphere, (c) Technicians conducting DNA research, (d) Paleontologists preparing fossilized dinosaur bones for transport to laboratory for chemical analysis, (e) Astronomer studying the composition of asteroids. 

Most contemporary bone will completely decalcify at a concentration of 1 g/135 ml of 0.5 M EDTA. Fossil bone, however, often has more calcium per dry weight of bone owing to protein loss and calcite inclusion, and it will saturate EDTA with calcium at this concentration, often forming a heavy white precipitate. Increasing the volume of the extract with fresh decalcifying solution will usually dissolve the precipitate. 

Fig. 2. Gradient (4-20%) acrylamide gel of bone extracts. Two hundred micrograms of modem bone extract (M) and 400 /ig of three fossil bone extracts from the Archaic (7000 years b.p.) Windover site were stained with Coomassie Brilliant Blue. Products in the molecular weight range of albumin, IgG (heavy chain), and osteonectin are annotated, and the three proteins were identified in Western blots of this gel in both the modem and fossil bone extracts.

Fig. 3. Gradient (4-20%) acrylamide gel of bone extracts from a fossil whale bone (10,000 years b.p.). Soluble extract (A) shows a range of molecular weights that are stained with Coomassie Brilliant Blue. The insoluble (in guanidine/EDTA) extract was heated in gel sample buffer at 100° for 30 min, and the buffer was removed. This insoluble extract also has a range of molecular weights that tend to be higher on average than the EDTA-soluble component. The soluble extract was digested with bacterial collagenase (B), and two products with molecular weights similar to albumin and osteonectin were revealed.

The presence of organic impurities in fossil as well as in the HCl-soluble fraction of modem bone collagen indicates that part of these non-collagen organics may be a component of bone, possibly carbohydrates. It is possible that upon fossilization under certain environmental conditions of burial, the relative amount of these materials increases independently of age. This may result from bacterial reworking of the bone organic matter. 

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