Virtual trip to the heart of 400 million years old microfossils

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Virtual trip to the heart of 400 million years old microfossils
Researchers from the Université de Montpellier II (France), the Institute of Geology of China, and the ESRF have been able to identify enigmatic fossils from Devonian (about 400 million years) as fructification of charophyte algae. Charophytes are land plants living in fresh water that still exist nowadays. This breakthrough allows researchers to better understand the evolution of these very old plants of the Paleozoic era and to have an improved overview of the climate at this period. The use of powerful X-rays beams to perform high resolution microtomography at the ESRF was one of the major keys in helping to understand the internal structure of these fossils.


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