Jurassic Park at Synchrotron SOLEIL

What do SOLEIL and the cinema have in common?

As the third part of the Jurassic World film series is released in cinemas, we invite you to go back to the origins of the saga through research carried out at SOLEIL!

The exceptional preservation of inclusions in amber (insects, plants, etc.) has been the subject of many fantasies, particularly the possibility of extracting the DNA of extinct organisms. Although it is now known that ancient DNA does not remain in amber, the processes behind its degradation, as well as that of the organisms themselves, remain unknown.

In early June 2022, scientists from IPANEMA and SOLEIL used the PUMA beamline to decipher the preservation processes in amber, comparing fossil insects with modern insects embedded in fresh tree resin. In particular, the researchers studied fossil flies and mosquitoes trapped in 40 million-year-old Baltic amber.

Their aim: to describe the early mechanisms associated with fossilisation in amber.