Molecular palaeontology

Abstract

A series of major advances in biology and organic geochemistry has yielded new and extremely powerful methods of recovering, purifying and identifying organic compounds. As a result it is now possible to extract considerable information from the vast reservoir of organic material present in rocks and fossils. New procedures allowing detailed investigation of the structure, composition and interrelationships of living molecules can also provide invaluable information on a timescale of geological proportions.