DNA-like technique may help nab fossil thieves

By Mike Stark

updated 2:44 p.m. ET Aug. 3, 2009

SALT LAKE CITY - Looters who plundered one of Utah's newest troves of dinosaur bones got away with ribs, vertebrae and part of an ancient legbone they had to bust apart to remove. They also stole hidden scientific clues about the life of a young diplodocus dinosaur that roamed the area some 150 million years ago.

"It's like pieces of a puzzle that are now gone," said Scott Williams, collections and exhibits manager at the Burpee Museum of Natural History, the Rockford, Ill.-based institution that has been digging at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management-owned site.

The bones — and the thieves — from the site near Hanksville haven't been seen since the theft last fall. And, odds are, they won't. Stolen dinosaur bones and other fossils snatched illegally from federally owned land often disappear into living rooms, lucrative underground markets or expensive private collections.

But a new forensic technique — something akin to DNA fingerprinting — could give investigators a long-sought tool to track fossil thieves.

Researchers are testing methods designed to match chemical signatures of naturally occurring elements that seep into bones during fossilization with surrounding soil.

The process — which analyzes a group known as rare earth elements — could someday lead to a database of site "fingerprints" used to link bones to looted areas. More work is needed, but early signs are encouraging that the technique could be useful in nabbing those capitalizing on looted fossils, said Dennis Terry, a researcher at Temple University in Philadelphia.

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"I really hope we can make use of this to deter the ones out there really trying to make a profit from this," said Terry, who is working on the project with fellow Temple researcher David Grandstaff.

Testing on the technique continues in Wyoming this summer. It has been honed since 2005 at Nebraska National Forest, another hotspot for fossil thieves. So far, results indicate the analysis could tie 85 percent to 98 percent of fossil samples back to their original sites. Terry is also speaking with officials at South Dakota's Badlands National Park about starting a database of the park's most poached sites.

"So often we catch people with fossils in their car or something like that but we can't prove they were collected in the park," said Rachel Benton, a paleontologist at Badlands, which has a long history of fossil poaching.

Losing sleep over thefts
Fossil theft is a frustrating and all-too-common reality for paleontologists working on federal land who say the objects — aside from being government property — hold irreplaceable information in trying to piece together the story of ancient life.

"We're not making T-rexes any more," said Vincent Santucci, who heads the National Park Service's paleontology programs.

That rarity also feeds high prices. There are legitimately collected fossils taken from private land with permission from the land owner. The complete skeleton of a 150-million-year-old dryosaurus found on private land in Wyoming was put up for auction earlier this year with a minimum price of $300,000.

Illicit artifacts can also fetch a high price, especially complete skulls and teeth.

"People are making a living off of selling resources that belong to the American public," said Scott Foss, who oversees BLM's paleontological operations in Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

In Utah, which is rife with dinosaur quarries and regularly the source of newly found species, the losses to scientific knowledge can be dramatic, said Jim Kirkland, the state paleontologist. He said he's terrified that vandals will hit a significant site before scientists can meticulously go through it.

"I lose sleep over stuff like that," said Kirkland, who, like other paleontologists, is cautiously optimistic about the new method.

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