Dr. Caitlin Colleary (left) and Kirtlandia intern Chase Manson (right) pictured at the Cleveland Quarry, the site where Haplocanthosaurus delfsi was discovered by a CMNH team in 1954.
On a field trip this summer through the American West, Dr. Caitlin Colleary, Curator and the Joan and Dan Holmes Family Endowed Chair of Vertebrate Paleontology, and Kirtlandia intern Chase Manson weren’t hunting for the biggest dinosaur bones.
They were collecting the small stuff: fragments and overlooked pieces that many would walk past without a second glance. But in molecular paleontology, those smaller fossils could hold some exciting clues about ancient life.
That’s the idea behind the new Molecular Paleontology Research Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, a long-term scientific resource aimed at preserving fossils specifically for molecular study. Supported by a new, first-time grant from the David B. Jones Foundation, the project is designed to make fossils more accessible for research into biomolecules such as proteins, DNA, and lipids—the microscopic remnants of ancient biology that can still survive in the fossil record.
The project has three stages: collection, curation, and digitization. This summer’s fieldwork launched the first stage, with Dr. Colleary’s team heading into the field to gather specimens and sediment. The second stage will involve curating a representative set of fossils spanning the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (an incredible 225 million-year period), with a special focus on fragments. Finally, they’ll photograph, 3D scan, and catalog everything in the Museum’s database so the material can be tracked and shared.
A dedicated collection
Molecular paleontology is the study of preserved molecules in fossils. Those molecules can reveal details about what extinct animals were like, how they were related to one another, and even the environments they lived in. In other words, fossils can tell us far more than shape and size alone.
And yet, many museum collections were built before molecular science emerged. That makes it difficult to perform molecular analysis on existing collections. As Dr. Colleary points out, a given specimen “could potentially be something that's been in the collection for a hundred years, and you have no idea what glues are on it, what reconstruction has happened, or what treatments have been done to it.” These variables make it challenging—sometimes impossible—to safely extract molecular data later.
While the project will also involve evaluating existing collections for specimens that are appropriate for molecular study, they must also be suitable for destructive analysis—meaning, any procedure that could permanently alter a specimen. “It can be difficult to get permission to do destructive analyses on samples,” said Dr. Colleary. “And there are things that you just don't want to destroy—so having a collection that's specifically made for that purpose is really important.”
This new collection, the first of its kind in the field of vertebrate paleontology, is meant to solve that problem.
Dr. Colleary searches for bone fragments at one of the dig sites.
Small fragments tell big stories
Fossil fragments may not often be suitable for display in a museum, or tell us much about the anatomy of the animal they come from—but they are a surprisingly important part of the story. Thanks to molecular paleontology, a tiny piece of bone may still preserve enough evidence to identify what kind of animal it came from.
“DNA is what most people probably think of when they think about molecules that are potentially preserved in fossils,” said Dr. Colleary. “That record only goes back a little over a million years, but it gives you a wealth of information about the animals, so you can understand others they're related to and their evolutionary histories.”
Then there are proteins—Dr. Colleary’s own area of study. “Proteins go a lot further back,” she says. “We find them preserved on much longer time scales.”
Dr. Colleary also notes how amazing it is that we’re able to find original molecules that are preserved in fossils—a feat that scientists didn’t think was possible for a long time. The previous thinking was that any original biological information would have long since been replaced and mineralized.
“But with proteins, we can get a lot of information,” says Dr. Colleary. “You can identify things down to the species level, depending on how well the proteins are preserved. You can also do phylogenetic analyses, so you can understand how things are related to one another and look at those evolutionary stories, too.”
The team worked to develop new methods for handling specimens intended for molecular analysis, using materials such as aluminum foil to avoid contamination.
Experimenting in the field
This summer’s fieldwork was the first step in building the collection from the ground up. Dr. Colleary and intern Chase traveled to sites in Colorado, South Dakota, and Montana, including the historic Cleveland Quarry in the Garden Park Fossil Area, the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, and the Hell Creek Formation. At each site, the goal was not simply to find fossils, but to test how well they could be collected for molecular preservation.
At the Cleveland Quarry in Colorado, the team worked in an area tied to the discovery of the Museum’s own Haplocanthosaurus, or Happy. In South Dakota, they tested their methods on a mammoth rib from a sinkhole site preserving about 60 mammoth skeletons. In Montana, they looked for material from a formation linked to dinosaur Nanotyrannus, first discovered by former Museum curator David Dunkle and the subject of Dr. Colleary’s recent breakthrough study. The field season also gave the team the opportunity to practice collecting specimens intended for molecular analyses, and develop a standard operating procedure for their methods—a task which was the focus of Chase’s summer project.
“The goals were basically to avoid all adhesives,” said Dr. Colleary. “We wore sterile gloves when we picked things up, and the containers that we put them in are also important. We used aluminum foil and aluminum containers to avoid any sort of cross-contaminants that may be introduced from oils, plastics, or other containers.” As they gathered materials, Chase tested these methods in the field to figure out what worked and what didn't.
They also collected sediment alongside fossils. “We can get a lot of data out of sediment samples, but we can also use it as a control,” said Dr. Colleary. “If we're looking for certain molecules in bones, we look at the sediment to make sure it's not in there, and then we know that it's unique to the bone.” If a molecule appears in the bone but not in the surrounding sediment, that helps confirm it is truly associated with the specimen.
From fossils to digital infrastructure
A major part of the project is digital, too. Funding from the David B. Jones Foundation grant will also support two work-study students, who will work with Dr. Colleary to begin building the digital infrastructure needed to track the complex data associated with these specimens. “There's a lot of figuring out how to store and track all of the information that comes with them,” says Dr. Colleary.
As Dr. Colleary describes, this “extended specimen data” includes everything that belongs with a fossil beyond the physical object itself: maps, field notes, correspondence, photos, 3D scans, and molecular results. That information helps tell the full story behind the fossil—where it came from, how it was collected, and what has been learned from it, all pieces that give us a much bigger picture. Building a system to store and track that data will make the collection far more useful to future researchers.
Another resource that will come in handy is the Museum’s new imaging lab, funded by a recent grant from the National Science Foundation, which adds another layer of investigation by using different wavelengths of light to reveal things you can’t normally see—including treatments or adhesives that might otherwise go unnoticed.
The future of studying the past
In the long term, the goal of the Molecular Paleontology Research Collection is to make it a resource for researchers. “Molecular data reveals more details about ancient life,” says Dr. Colleary. “There's so much information that we can get from these specimens, and it's an exciting new direction paleontology is heading in.”
One of the most exciting parts? Much of that future research could involve discoveries we can’t even fathom yet. As Dr. Colleary says, the original explorers of the historic dig sites she and Chase visited likely could have never envisioned the kind of information we can learn from fossils today. The technology available to tomorrow’s scientists could change just as much over the next few decades. “Who knows what we'll be able to do in the future?” she says.
Another invaluable part of the project is the experience it will provide for students. The interns and work-study students involved will gain hands-on experience in excavation, curation, digitization, and data management—the practical skills that modern paleontology increasingly depends on. For Dr. Colleary, that educational mission is essential. This project isn’t just about building a collection; it’s about building the next generation of scientists who know how to work with it.
In that sense, the Molecular Paleontology Research Collection is bigger than a Museum initiative. It is a scientific investment, an educational platform, and a public resource. It will turn overlooked fragments into future evidence, and careful fieldwork into long-term knowledge. And it asks a simple but powerful question: if fossils can still hold molecules, what else can they tell us?
