Scientists have discovered DNA dating back two million years in Ice Age sediments in Greenland – the oldest genome ever identified. The sensational find in the Arctic ice desert suggests that life once thrived in today’s harsh and hostile environment.
In sediments (pictured below) excavated around the mouth of a fjord in the Arctic Ocean, an international team of researchers found DNA fragments for a range of animals, including mastodons, reindeer, rabbits, lemmings and geese, from plants such as poplar and birch, and microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi.
Researchers extracted and sequenced genetic material from 41 organic-rich sediment samples taken from five sites on the Pearyland Peninsula, Greenland’s northernmost region, which juts out into the Arctic Ocean. The tiny, microscopic DNA fragments were contained in layers of clay and quartz.
“Very special kind of deposits”
“It’s a very special type of deposit because the area was forested two million years ago, mastodons, reindeer and rabbits roamed the area, and there were many different kinds of plants. We even have 102 different animal and plant taxa (genera of animals and plants, nm) were found,” reports Mikkel Winther Pedersen from the University of Copenhagen.
“I don’t think anyone believed that Greenland was home to such a diversity of plants and animals two million years ago, at a time when the climate was very similar to what we expect in a few years due to global warming . ” he said Eske Willerslev, director of the Lundbeck Foundation’s GeoGenetics Center, quoted in the journal Nature.
“We’re just pushing the boundaries of what we thought was possible in terms of genetic studies. For a long time it was thought that a million years was the limit for genome survival, but now it’s DNA that’s twice as old.” , her research colleague Pederson adds.
Can genetic material be kept much longer?
The DNA discovery in Greenland also makes it possible to draw new conclusions about the conditions under which rock strata can store genetic material for so long. According to a member of the research team, they are dealing with a Pandora’s box that has only just opened.
According to the scientists, the DNA fragments deciphered with the latest technology are a million years older than the previous record find, DNA extracted from a Siberian mammoth bone.
Source: Krone
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