Researchers discover earliest record of rugose coral
High-energy X-rays produced by Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron science facility, have revealed the earliest rugose coral recorded to date. Using high-resolution tomography enabled by the Diamond synchrotron, researchers from Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales and Golestan University (Iran) were able to create 3D images of the rare fossil, without having to sample it destructively. The clear, detailed images confirmed that the fossil was a 462 million year-old rugose coral, five million years older than previous discoveries of this type. The results, published online in Geological Magazine, demonstrate that this non-destructive synchrotron technique holds great promise for the "virtual dissecting" of fossils and could be set to transform palaeontological studies in the UK.