Fossil feathers are usually preserved as carbonaceous films and impressions in lacustrine and marine sediments, or embedded in amber, but rarely mineralized. In a new study, paleontologists examined mineralized plumage of a 30,000-year-old griffon vulture preserved in ash-rich volcanic sediments of the Colli Albani volcanic complex, Rome, Italy. The bird’s feathers were preserved in three dimensions, with preservation of tissue ultrastructures such as melanosomes. These ultrastructures are mineralized in nanocrystalline zeolite, a mode of preservation not previously reported in fossil soft tissues.
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