Jurassic Park

Is it possible to find insects in amber (resin from pine trees)? Absolutely. Is it possible to revive organisms encased in fossilized amber? The answer to that question is surprising.

In 1991, microbiologists at California Polytechnic State University found (this is a PDF link) a bee in amber. There was nothing unusual about that. But Dr. Raul Cano has claimed he isolated a bacterium inside the bee’s abdomen - and then revived it! Other scientists are attempting to duplicate Cano’s results.

Isolating and reviving bacteria, however, is very different from reviving an extinct animal. Dr. Cano says,

It has been known for some time that, because of their size, structure and composition, some bacteria can survive as spores for long periods, much as seeds outlive a plant. That is not true of complex organisms.

But we can study fossilized complex organisms. Jurassic-age fossils have been located throughout the world. Three areas in particular, featured at U. C. Berkeley’s web site, have produced extraordinary finds.

The Blue Nile Gorge (near the Ethiopian Rift Valley in Africa), Solnhofen (in Germany) and Berlin-Ichthyosaur (in the United States) have become treasure houses for paleontologists. Other Jurassic finds (in France, England, central Russia, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere) have also supplied priceless materials for scientific study.

Let’s examine one of the most important in greater detail.