[Rockhounds] Scientists discover 'ghost' fossils beneath a microscope

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

The unexpected discovery of "ghost" fossils belonging to tiny, ancient
organisms could provide insights about how life reacts to climate change in
Earth's oceans.
Looking through a powerful microscope, researchers were stunned to see the
impressions left by single-celled plankton, or fossilized nannoplankton,
that lived millions of years ago -- especially since they were analyzing
something else.
A study detailing the findings published Thursday in the journal Science
<https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abm7330>.


"The discovery of the ghost fossils was a complete surprise," said study
author Sam Slater, researcher at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in
Stockholm.


"We were actually studying fossil pollen from the same rocks. I had never
seen this style of fossil preservation before, and the discovery was doubly
surprising because the imprints were found in abundance from rocks where
normal nannofossils are rare or missing entirely."


As the researchers examined the pollen under a scanning electron
microscope, they spied "tiny potholes" on the surface of the pollen, Slater
said. When they zoomed in to see the potholes using magnifications of
thousands of times, they observed complex structures.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/19/world/ghost-fossil-nannoplnakton-scn/index.html