English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
Add to Basket
  Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released
Journal Article

Enzymatic phosphatization of fish scales—a pathway for fish fossilization

Authors

Gäb,  Fabian
External Organizations;

Bierbaum,  Gabriele
External Organizations;

/persons/resource/wirth

Wirth,  R.
3.5 Interface Geochemistry, 3.0 Geochemistry, Departments, GFZ Publication Database, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum;

Bultmann,  Christoph
External Organizations;

Palmer,  Brianne
External Organizations;

Janssen,  Kathrin
External Organizations;

Karačić,  Sabina
External Organizations;

External Ressource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (public)

5025539.pdf
(Publisher version), 2MB

Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Gäb, F., Bierbaum, G., Wirth, R., Bultmann, C., Palmer, B., Janssen, K., Karačić, S. (2024): Enzymatic phosphatization of fish scales—a pathway for fish fossilization. - Scientific Reports, 14, 8347.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-59025-3


Cite as: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5025539
Abstract
Phosphatized fish fossils occur in various locations worldwide. Although these fossils have been intensively studied over the past decades they remain a matter of ongoing research. The mechanism of the permineralization reaction itself remains still debated in the community. The mineralization in apatite of a whole fish requires a substantial amount of phosphate which is scarce in seawater, so the origin of the excess is unknown. Previous research has shown that alkaline phosphatase, a ubiquitous enzyme, can increase the phosphate content in vitro in a medium to the degree of saturation concerning apatite. We applied this principle to an experimental setup where fish scales were exposed to commercial bovine alkaline phosphatase. We analyzed the samples with SEM and TEM and found that apatite crystals had formed on the remaining soft tissue. A comparison of these newly formed apatite crystals with fish fossils from the Solnhofen and Santana fossil deposits showed striking similarities. Both are made up of almost identically sized and shaped nano-apatites. This suggests a common formation process: the spontaneous precipitation from an oversaturated solution. The excess activity of alkaline phosphatase could explain that effect. Therefore, our findings could provide insight into the formation of well-preserved fossils.