Recent denaturation experiments of bacteriorhodopsin (bR) in the dark and under illumination at high temperatures revealed that irreversible thermal bleaching occurs above ~ 70°C and the preceding reversible structural changes in the dark above 60°C are closely related to irreversible photobleaching observed in the same temperature range (Yokoyama et al. (2002). J Biochem. 131,785). In this study, structural properties of bacteriorhodopsin (bR) at high temperatures were extensively probed by hydroxylamine reactivity with the Schiff base in the dark and hydrogen-deuterium (H-D) exchange in the peptide groups. In the Arrhenius plot from kinetics measurements of the hydroxylamine reaction, a good linear relationship between the reaction time constant and the inverse of the absolute temperature was observed below 60°C, while significant increase started above 60°C, suggesting that remarkable increase in water accessibility of the Schiff base in the temperature region. FT-IR spectroscopic studies on the H-D exchange suggested increase in the deuterium exchanges rate of the peptide hydrogen in the same temperature region.