Searching for fossils is a difficult job. Even after making a discovery of fossilized bones, it’s difficult to tell whether or not you have a complete or partial fossil of a creature. Sergio Azevedo of the National Museum of Brazil in Rio knows this very well.

While prospecting along an old railroad site in São Paulo, Azevedo discovered the fossilized remains of an undiscovered and extinct species of crocodile. To gain a better sense of exactly what he and his team discovered, Azevedo used a portable CT scanner to “determine the origin of the specimen in the ground”. After determining where all of the bones lay, the team cut a large slab of rock from the ground and transported it back to their lab where a more powerful CT scanner was used to probe the rock in greater detail.

From the scan, the team received detailed images of the crocodile’s skeletal structure, which they then used to make a 3D resin print.

According to Louise Leakey, head of the virtual fossil museum AfricanFossils.org, "3D printing will be a step change in the science of palaeontology once the costs come down… You can now use laser scanners to capture surface detail of delicate fossils in the field in 3D before they are excavated to provide an in situ record of a fossil or a site before it is disturbed…”

While being able to assess the completeness of a fossil in the field and recreate it without excavation is impressive, what really amazed me was Azevedo’s statement on the future of paleontological research. "We are developing several research lines in palaeontology using CT and surface 3D scanning… These include the nervous system and biomechanics of crocodiles, dinosaurs and other vertebrate fossils.”

Read More at New Scientist

Image Courtesy of New Scientist