Project Description
The ~307 million year old Mazon Creek fossils site is considered one of the best in the world due to its diverse and abundant soft-tissue fauna, including animals such as worms and jellyfish which rarely preserve at other fossil sites. However, the mechanism of fossilization at the Mazon Creek fossil site, which is not yet fully understood, imparts a strong ‘fossilization overprint’ on the preserved soft tissues, which means that the features seen in the fossils are difficult to correctly interpret. This hampers accurate identification and ecological reconstructions of the fossil animals. The objective of this research is to characterize how vertebrate organs and soft tissues (e.g., skin, eyes, muscles) are preserved in Mazon Creek fossils, to better understand the mechanism of fossilization and more accurately interpret these fossils. We will use a scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive spectroscopy capabilities to image and analyze the elemental composition of different fossil tissues to determine what minerals precipitated to preserve the tissue, and how the crystal sizes and shapes vary across tissues.
Tasks and Responsibilites
From our previous work on this project, we have a set of SEM images and elemental compositions of different tissues from a variety of vertebrate fossils from the Mazon Creek fossil site. The student will work closely with us to learn how to identify the different organs and tissues in each animal, and how to identify different minerals from the SEM images and elemental compositions. Then, the student will take the lead in interpreting the preservation style of each fossil. For each different tissue/organ in each fossil, the student will note the following: what minerals are in that location; and the size and shape and crystal habit of that mineral. We will all work together to interpret these data and determine if mineral precipitation seems to follow random patterns, or if similar tissues preserve the same way across different species, or if all tissues preserve the same within a species and differently between species. The student will observe as we do additional SEM analyses, to gain some experience with this instrument.
Desired Qualifications
None Listed.