Re: It's no joke!

Soft tissue and cell preservation occurs in a variety of special
geochemical environments. The oldest fossils known are single
bacterial cells preserved primarily in cherts but also in other
deposits. Carbonized plants fossils and arthropod cuticles are
routinely removed from silica host rocks. Tissue preservation at the
cellular scale of invertebrate and vertebrate fossils has been reported
in numerous cases. Most of these latter are due to phosphatization.

Many of the chemical processes involved in such early soft tissue
preservation are fairly well known and understood, others are not. It
will be interesting to see a more detailed description of the
preservation mode and preparation techniques used in this case. The
artical states that the mineralization was dissolved, leaving the
organic material behind. This is similar to what is done in removing
arthropod cuticle from rocks by immersion in hydroflouric acid.

Keith
Received on Fri Mar 25 21:38:02 2005