COSMOS MAGAZINE
Credit: Dawid A. Iurino
Palaeontologists have discovered that volcanic deposits can turn the microscopic details of animal tissues into minerals – the first time this type of preservation has ever been seen.
Credit: Edoardo Terranova
The team from the University College Cork in Ireland, analysed a fossilised vulture that had been buried in ash-rich volcanic sediment 30,000 years ago, in central Italy.
The vulture’s body was quickly converted into minerals before the soft parts could decay away.
The feathers were rapidly replaced by zeolite nanocrystals, likely within days, due to water interacting with volcanic ash.
‘The Doom of the Alban Hills’ – a digital painting representing a possible scenario of the moments before the vulture carcass was entombed in the pyroclastic current. Credit: Dawid A. Iurino
Unlike traditional fossil feathers found in sediment or amber, these mineralised feathers reveal microscopic pigment structures in unprecedented detail.