Ancient Fidget Spinner – Imaging Microfossils of Radiolarian

Ancient Fidget Spinner – Imaging Microfossils of Radiolarian

The winning image in the category of Geosciences & Natural Resources of the 2022 ZEISS Microscopy Image Contest was submitted by Dr. Sebastien Colin of the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tuebingen, Germany. It shows  a microfossil of radiolarian, acquired with a  ZEISS LSM 780 confocal microscope.

Microfossils are the tiny remains of bacteria, protists, fungi, animals, and plants. These fossil remains are studied as a single discipline because rock samples must be processed in certain ways to remove them and microscopes must be used to study them. This subdivision of paleontology is very significant in geology, paleontology, and biology.