The Cambrian Evolutionary Explosion: Novel Evidence from Fossils Studied by X-ray Tomography
- Nanjing University, China
The Cambrian explosion (from 542 million years to 488 million years ago) is one of the greatest mysteries in evolutionary biology. It wasn't until this period that complex organisms became common and diverse. the magnitude of the event can be understood based on the contrast between the biota and the degree of diversity of the fossils from both sides. great advances have been made in Cambrian palaeontology over the past century, especially the discovery of the well-preserved soft-bodied fauna from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale and the Lower Cambrian Maotianshan Shale deposits. The Cambrian side of the "Cambrian explosion" is richly illustrated and contrasts greatly with the Precambrian side. The study of these extraordinarily preserved fossil biota is extremely difficult. A major challenge is 3-D reconstruction and determining the patter of the cell organization in Weng'an embryos and their buried structures in Maotianshan Shale fossils. This talk will show that two recent technological approaches, propagation phase contrast synchrotron x-ray microtomography and microtomography, provide unique analytical tools that permit the nondestructive computational examination and visualization of the internal and buried characters in virtual sections in any plane, and virtual 3-D depictions of internal structures.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-ACO2-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1042465
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: APS Colloquium Series, Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois (United States), presented on June 1, 2011
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ANTIFERROMAGNETIC MATERIALS
CHARGE CARRIERS
CHARGE DENSITY
COPPER COMPOUNDS
COPPER IONS
CUPRATES
DIFFRACTION
DOMAIN STRUCTURE
DOPED MATERIALS
ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE
LAYERS
KINETIC ENERGY
OXIDES
SEGREGATION
SPIN
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
HIGH-TC SUPERCONDUCTORS
Cambrian
Fossils
X-ray Tomography