Oldest DNA ever recovered[edit]
A sample of a close genetic relative of H. salinarum encapsulated in salt has allowed for the recovery of DNA fragments estimated at 121 million years old. Oddly, the material had been also recovered earlier, but it proved to be so similar to the modern descendants that scientists had believed the earlier samples were contaminated.
Scientists have previously recovered similar genetic material from the Michigan Basin, the same region where the latest discovery was made. But that DNA, discovered in a salt-cured buffalo hide in the 1930s, was so similar to that of modern microbes that many scientists believed the samples had been contaminated.[20] The curing salt had been derived from a mine in Saskatchewan, the site of the most recent sample described by Jong Soo Park of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.[21]
Russell Vreeland of Ancient Biomaterials Institute of West Chester University in Pennsylvania, USA, performed an analysis of all known halopathic bacteria, which yielded the finding that Park's bacteria contained six segments of DNA never seen before in the halopaths. Vreeland also tracked down the buffalo skin and determined that the salt came from the same mine as Park's sample. He has also discovered an even older halopath estimated at 250 million years old in New Mexico.[22]