Two million year old DNA samples discovered, lodged in ancient sediment
Scientists have recovered the oldest DNA samples yet, in sediment left over from the Ice Age in Northern Greenland, according to research published inThe tiny fragments of DNA molecules, preserved in clay and quartz, are estimated to date back two million years, making them the oldest specimens discovered yet. The record wasby a DNA sample taken from the frozen molar of a million-year-old woolly mammoth lodged in permafrost in Eastern Siberia.
Complete sets of DNA allow scientists to piece together an organism's genome – used to characterize and identify different species. However, when organisms die and decompose, their strands of DNA erode and break apart over time. Specific environmental conditions like extreme cold can sometimes slow that process and preserve some DNA.
The team of researchers led by the University of Copenhagen had to use statistical algorithms to recover an estimated 41 different samples from the broken, jumbled molecules. They identified various plants, animals, and microorganisms that once supported a rich ecosystem in Northern Greenland during the Ice Age millions of years ago.show the Kap København Formation – now an arid patch of polar desert – used to harbor poplar, birch, and thuja trees surrounded by various shrubs and herbs.
"We believe a combination of environmental factors helped preserve the DNA. First, the fact it was frozen throughout the two million years; second, the type of minerals in the sediments also seemed to favor this," Mikkel Pedersen, co-author of the study and an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen's GeoGenetics unit, toldFinding such old specimens allows scientists to study how life and the climate on Earth evolved over time.
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