inRock Fossils

3-D Images Reveal Fossils Inside Rock
By Tracy Staedter, Discovery News

Feb. 16, 2006—What could be better for a paleontologist than finding a 650-million-year-old microscopic fossil? How about seeing it in three dimensions without ever having to extract it from the rock that preserves it?

Paleobiologist J. William Schopf of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues have developed a technique that lets them see fossilized microorganisms and their chemical makeup.

Such a method could not only help scientists settle a few disputes about whether or not certain microscopic structures are indeed fossils from the earliest days of life on Earth, but it could also be used to potentially search for long-lost life in rocks from Mars.

"You can now turn the fossil upside down. You can look at it from the side. You can look at it from the top. You can take layers off and look at its insides," said Schopf. "This is the first time anybody has been able to do that."

The technique uses two tried-and-true technologies already being put to use by biologists and chemists: confocal microscopy and Raman spectroscopy.

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