Apatite varieties in extant and fossil vertebrate mineralized tissues

Abstract

A whole-pattern fitting of X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns, including lattice-parameter and size–strain analysis, was elaborated and applied to a sample set of extant and fossil vertebrate tooth apatite. Recent and subfossil human tooth enamel and dentine, extant and fossil shark tooth enameloid, sarcopterygian and coelacanth tooth enamels were studied. As comparative materials, a modern coelacanth fish scale and a pharyngeal tooth of bony fish were used. It was found that the enamel apatite of human milk teeth had lattice parameter valuesa≃ 9.4 Å andc≃ 6.88 Å, which are close to the corresponding values of subfossil human teeth. The apatite of fossilized vertebrate teeth always has a loweralattice parameter (about 9.37 Å), while the lattice parametercappears to be more stable, being around 6.88 Å. The strain appears to be correlated with the lattice direction, being around ten times higher in the [hk0] direction. During fossilization, the strain diminished in the [00l] direction, but was random in the perpendicular [hk0] direction. The enamel tissues of vertebrates are built of two discrete crystallite series. About one-third of the human milk tooth enamel is composed of larger crystallites with dimensions of about 400 × 500 Å, and two-thirds of smaller crystallites with dimensions of about 50 × 150 Å. The latter range of dimensions is also characteristic for the crystallites forming the mineral part of human dentine and fish scales. Shark tooth enameloid is also built of two distinct series of apatite crystallites of different sizes and shapes. The larger crystallites (amounting to ∼15% of all crystallites) have approximate dimensions of 500 × 1000 Å, while the smaller ones are 400 × 500 Å. Both series are distinguishable in XRD patterns of modern, Jurassic and Devonian shark enamel.