A dark sliver of rock pulled from an Oklahoma limestone quarry is the world’s oldest fossil cast of skin ever found.
“This is definitively the oldest [known] piece of mummified skin,” says paleontologist Ethan Mooney of the University of Toronto Mississauga. It fits “into a broader story of how the first animals left the water and went onto land.”
Fossil collectors Bill and Julie May found the cast, along with exquisitely preserved skin impressions, at an Oklahoma quarry in an ancient limestone cave system known as Richards Spur.
There, a special concoction of cave conditions contributed to the fossils’ superb preservation. Corpses were buried in fine sediments, which excluded oxygen and slowed decay, and were exposed to groundwater rich in iron, an element that helps preserve tissues. Also, the site was an ancient oil seep. Petroleum and tar permeated the remains, sealing them off from decaying conditions while also staining them black.
2024-01-11 11:00:00
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