Blog
Welcome to our blog about life as a palaeontologist – or trainee palaeontologist – working on fossil colour.
23rd of October 2017
Maria, Chris and Tiffany were at Diamond Light Source, a synchrotron facility in Oxfordshire last week. Here they are running some samples!
16th of October 2017
Naomi has been procuring some new fossils for outreach and research purposes – see some examples below!
Top row (L-R): Permian reptile fossil footprints from France; Jurassic Saccocoma tenella from Solnhofen (Germany)
Bottom row (L-R): Jurassic disarticulated echinoids from France; Lower Jurassic Acanthochirana from France
9th of October 2017
Luke has been working with Professor Bo Wang at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences to identify the potential for structural colours in Jurassic lepidopteran fossils. Their study aims to provide new insights into the evolution of colour producing nanostructures as well as scale morphology in insects.
2nd of October 2017
A small selection of fossil insect wings of the order Neuroptera (lacewings) from the Jurassic of China. These wings, along with hundreds more, will be used by James in a morphometric analysis. The analysis will compare the different types of colour patterns preserved on the wings of the neuropteran fauna from the Jurassic of Daohugou, China.
25th of September 2017
Maria joins the PalAss team at the Yorkshire Fossil Festival!
Fresh from Culture Night, Maria jetted off to sunny Scarborough where she joined the PalAss team at the Annual Yorkshire Fossil Festival. As well as helping visitors to the PalAss stand make DIY fossil imprints and play the fossilization game, she took part in the Festival’s Soapbox Science event, armed with a trusty trilobite sidekick.
18th of September 2017
Chemical training in the lab. Giliane has set up a (safe) experiment for us to test whether acid should be placed into water, or should water be placed into acid. We ensured it was the correct way (acid into water!) before Tiffany tried it out!
11th of September 2017
Landmarks and Lifeforms: Linking science and art at the Limerick City Gallery of Art
Maria participated in a panel discussion at the opening of the new exhibition ‘Landmarks and Lifeforms’ by Irish artists Frieda Meaney and Danny Osbourne, chaired by Newstalk’s Éanna Ní Lamhna. The exhibition features prints and installations by Frieda focusing on evolution, change, and transformation, and lava sculptures and vessels by Danny. The panel discussion was very interactive, with lots of participation by the audience, and ranged in topic from origins of the Earth, climate change, and dinosaur evolution to creativity and the common methodical process that lies at the foundation of all scientific and artistic inquiry.
4th of September 2017
Valentina was at the ToF-SIMS facility in Manchester, to learn how to use the instrument as well as analyzing some melanin samples. She also visited Manchester Museum!
28th of August 2017
Tiffany, our new PhD student, is extracting feathers from a common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) (that was found dead!) for oxidation and decay experiments.
21st of August 2017
This is a histological section through a cuttlefish (Sepia officianalis) ink sack, the black-stained cells can be easily identified. Although it has been known for millennia that cuttlefish and other cephalopods produce ink, exactly how they produce melanin in their tissues is poorly known. Tim is currently looking into how and where melanosomes are produced in cephalopod tissue.
14th of August 2017
Posers with posters in Paris! Nidia, Valentina and Chris at Goldschmidt 2017.
7th of August 2017
Adrian has been splitting mudstones from the Daohugou Lagerstätte: pictured here are an abundance of conchostracans as well as some very nicely preserved plant material.
31st of July 2017
Tim’s current research aims to elucidate the nature and distribution of pigments in cephalopod molluscs. Using controlled sets of decay experiments, he is testing the robustness of these pigments to fossilization and what the preservation of these pigments could tell us about extinct taxa.
24th of July 2017
During a visit to his old lab in the physics department at the University of Exeter, Luke performed optical measurements to determine the angle-dependency of the circularly polarised reflectance from some of Giliane’s beetles.
17th of July 2017
Chris is dissecting the eye of a lamprey under the microscope, by separating the iris at the front of the eye from the choroid at the back. The long strand coming from the eye (as seen on the screen) is the lamprey’s optic nerve.
10th of July 2017
James on a visit to Beijing, China (Capital Normal University), searching the collections and imaging fossil insects with preserved colour patterns from the Middle Jurassic, Daohugou Lagerstätte.
3rd of July 2017
Giliane went to Dublin for a demo of a new high-spec, large-chamber EDS-based micro-XRF system, and tested the accuracy of the chemical analysis on a fossil cephalopod.
26th of June 2017
Some of the research group were recently in China doing fieldwork. Here is Valentina with the mountains of Inner Mongolia, and also acting as a human scale surrounded by an alternation of siltstone-mudstone and sandstone, typical of an alluvial fan deposit (age: Late Jurassic).
19th of June 2017
Nick captured this lovely shot of some Greek stratification!
12th of June 2017
The Chair of Geology, Prof. Andy Wheeler, at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences’ recent Research Day at the new MaREI Centre, speaking about the vast range of work Maria and her team accomplish at the School!
6th of June 2017
Nidia has been doing ladybird puzzles after 900 hours of tumbling!
29th of May 2017
Maria is trying out our new ultramicrotome for the first time!
22nd of May 2017
Maria, Chris and Giliane travelled to the University of Manchester recently to use the ChemiSTEM facility.
15th of May 2017
Luke has been surveying fossil beetle samples under the microscope. The goal is to find evidence for both the preservation of lepidote structures and iridescent colour indicating the presence of underlying photonic crystal morphologies.
8th of May 2017
James visiting the collections at the research station at Messel, Germany. Looking for fossil insects with preserved colour patterns.
2nd of May 2017
Maria delivering an interactive lecture to local schools as part of the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival 2017.
24th of April 2017
Angular-dependent reflection experimental setup used by Giliane for the characterization of iridescent beetles.
17th of April 2017
Valentina was recently in Dingle, Co Kerry on a fieldtrip with Maria’s second year students, and came across some Silurian trace fossil burrows and desiccation cracks.
10th of April 2017
Naomi is helping to prepare Valentina’s samples before they are sent for analysis!
3rd of April 2017
Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched? (These are the eyes of Octopus vulgaris)
27th of March 2017
Some exciting results on Nidia’s chemical analyses!
20th of March 2017
Valentina and Chris are looking exceptionally happy during dissections!
13th of March 2017
Chris has been learning how to use the TEM.
6th of March 2017
Valentina got an honourable mention for her talk at the IGRM!
27th of February 2017
Naomi and Giliane are performing sulfurization experiments.
20th of February 2017
Here is another procedure to stain histology sections – this one is automatic!
13th of February 2017
Valentina’s histology samples are undergoing the Fontana-Masson staining procedure to prepare the sections.
She will then analyse them to calculate the amount of melanin within each sample!
6th of February 2017
Maria was invited to give the first Quercus lecture of 2017, titled ‘Beyond the lab: making science accessible to all’. UCC’s Quercus students are recognised as some of the most talented in the university; the the Quercus Talented Students’ Programme aims to support and promote excellence in academia, sport, creative and performing arts, active citizenship and innovation/entrepreneurship. The goal of the Quercus lecture series is to inspire students, and staff, by presenting thought-provoking lectures by some of UCC’s most inspiring academics. Photo credit: Dr Ben Gearey, Department of Archaeology, University College Cork. Please see here for a video of the talk.
30th of January 2017
Saoirse has been studying the morphology of fossilized feathers with the aid of some of the artificially fossilized feathers that she has created in the lab.
23rd of January 2017
Nidia’s first tumbling experiments are done, all dried up and ready to analyse. Only a *few* hours of picking through sediment ahead!
16th of January 2017
Some of the palaeontology research group went to the BT Young Scientist competition during the weekend, where we displayed our own exhibit “Walk Like A Dinosaur”. This project was created by palaeontologists in UCC’s School of BEES, UCC’s School of Engineering and UCC’s Department of Computer Science. A sensor was attached to the legs of visitors to our stand, which was used to estimate their speed whilst walking / running, and what species of dinosaur this was equivalent to! Each member of the public that participated received a personalized talk about their species. We also brought along some trilobite fossils, an ammonite fossil, a fossilized Megalodon tooth and a cast of Microraptor!
9th of January 2017
Chris is examining fossils from the Mazon Creek lagerstätte, Illinois.
3rd of January 2017
Giliane is cutting ultra-thin sections of dinosaur samples with an ultramicrotome for TEM observation!
19th of December 2016
The research group attended the Palaeontological Association’s Annual Meeting in Lyon last week.
12th of December 2016
Valentina was recently in Darmstadt (Germany), analysing a Cenozoic fossils, including a reptile from the Messel Biota.
5th of December 2016
Saoirse has been busy examining the microstructures of modern feathers under the light microscope to help her gain an understanding of prehistoric feathers for her thesis.
28th of November 2016
Here are the members of the fossil colour team along with various undergraduate and postgraduate volunteers talking about insects, dinosaurs and more at the Cork Science Exhibition in Blackpool!
21st of November 2016
Nidia is in the middle of tumbling experiments! This type of procedure is used to simulate the transportation of sediment and biological matter (gravel and insect cuticle, in this instance) by water in a lake-shore environment.
14th of November 2016
Our research group was joined by a TV crew in the lab today! They were recording an upcoming documentary on prominent Irish female scientists.
7th of November 2016
Chris is dissecting a thornback ray for melanin extraction!
1st of November 2016
Here is our new technical research assistant Giliane Odin looking at the elytra of beetles through a spectrophotometer in order to characterize colours!
24th of October 2016
Our new postdoc James Jepson studying images of Jurassic fossil insects from Daohgou, China, looking at the different colour patterns preserved on their wings.
17th of October 2016
Valentina was in the Natural History Museum of London to take samples from reptile and amphibian fossils, and managed to get a photo with a stegosaur on the way!
10th of October 2016
A great afternoon visit to Cork University Hospital for outreach in the children’s ward!
3rd of October 2016
Last week Maria McNamara and PhD student Nidia Álvarez Armada presented papers at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver, Colorado – see links below:
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2016AM/webprogram/Paper286808.html
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2016AM/webprogram/Paper287497.html
26th of September 2016
Here is Chris at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto having fun in the fossil vertebrate collections!
23rd of September 2016
“After all this waiting, this is what it must feel like to have a baby” – Nidia said at the moment of taking her samples out after 6 months of decay!
19th of September 2016
Naomi is doing lots of SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) work this week on her pollen samples!
12th of September 2016
Chris is looking happy with his recent delivery of Ciona larvae! Ciona is a genus of sea squirt, and the darkened area of the test tube contains 300 of the larvae!
5th of September 2016
Plenty of chemicals and calculations today in our lab, as Odhrán is currently undertaking enzymatic extraction of melanin experiments.
29th of August 2016
Time for Valentina to analyze her data! Let’s discover awesome things!
22nd of August 2016
72 feathers later, Saoirse is about to conduct her final experiment to examine what kind of effects simulating preservation might have on modern feathers.
16th of August 2016
Odhrán (another new intern!) has been busy preparing his decay experiment. It is finally going in!
9th of August 2016
Our new research intern Amy Muir has been busy working on several taphonomic experiments in the lab – here she is decanting solutions under a nitrogen atmosphere.
2nd of August 2016
Naomi has lots of samples to get through! The murky liquid being used is simulated peat bog water, in order to see its effect(s) on different pollen species over time.
26th of July 2016
Chris is preparing to dissect and then extract melanin from amphioxus, a basal chordate thought to be similar in appearance to some of our earliest ancestors. Amphioxus only has the pigment melanin in its ‘eye spot’, a light sensing organ near to its mouth.
18th of July 2016
“Another brick in the wall” for Valentina in the histology lab!
12th of July 2016
After twenty-four hours of waiting, Saoirse finally has removed her feather samples from the furnace. She is very eager to see the results of her first of many experiments.
8th of July 2016
Nidia is very excited with the synchrotron data of her Parnassius apollonius!
4th of July 2016
One of our undergraduates, Vitor, is preparing resin for the analysis of cephalopod specimens.
28th of June 2016
Here is our new post doc Chris Rogers helping to set up our new micro welder in the lab.
21st of June 2016
Maria is hard at work welding gold capsules for maturation experiments.
13th of June 2016
Valentina is surrounded by new technology!
5th of June 2016
Here’s Valentina getting to grips with her sample analyses in San Francisco!
23rd of May 2016
Nidia was presenting during the weekend at Progressive Palaeontology 2016, a conference hosted by Oxford University Natural History Museum.
16th of May 2016
Here we are in action loading samples at beamline 11-2 at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource facility in California.
3rd of May 2016
What’s cooking up in Valentina’s lab? Stay tuned for the next installment!
26th of April 2016
Yesterday we were at Manchester University running some samples on the ToF-SIMS with our colleague Nick Lockyer. Here you can see Nick loading up the samples. Exciting stuff!
22th of April 2016
Phew! Maria is just back from the European Geosciences Congress at Vienna, where she presented a poster with colleague Daniel Field of Yale University, titled ‘Maturation experiments reveal bias in the fossil record of feathers’. More interesting results to follow!
