Entombed microbes in salt crystal believed to be 30,000 years old

Researchers from the university of hawaii  studied  salt crystal taken from a sediment core taken from death valley in california.
The salt crystals contained small quanties of liquid and the researchers grew live colonies from the samples.
The liquid was dated at between 22-34 thousand years ago.

The structure of these salt crystal indicates they were formed in a hypersaline lake,
As they has not been a permanent lake in Death valley for at least 10,000 years,this means recrystallisation properbly hasn't taken place,suggesting that the microbes are as old as they appear.

the same crystals also containe  dead cells from a salt-lake algae called Dunaliella algae,which have high levels of glycerol.
It has been calculated that a single dunaliella cell contains enough glycerol to meet a microbe needs for 12 million years.