Seminar: Synchrotron Radiation in Palaeontology - A New Approach

Fri., Apr. 12, 2013 3:30 p.m. - Fri., Apr. 12, 2013 4:30 p.m.

Location: CL 312

Dedicated synchrotron radiation facilities have been with us since the middle of the last century. With successive generations of these facilities has come a diversification of the research conducted therein. Research from all stripes of science is now being conducted at synchrotrons around the world including the Canadian Light Source in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. One of the newest branches of synchrotron research is its application to palaeontology. The ability to gain detailed information on the chemical makeup of fossils, including spacial distribution down to the micron scale, in a short time- frame while not damaging samples makes synchrotron based research ideal for the study of fossils. However, with new applications come new challenges. Many of these need to be addressed through rigorous, physics-based analysis. At the same time, physics alone cannot address all of the questions that arise, making this research inherently interdisciplinary. The Integrated Palaeontology Working Group is a group of scientists that has come together to meet these challenges and further our knowledge of past ecosystems. Physics research in this group has been focused on the precise determination of element concentrations and distributions, while also developing techniques to address the new challenges encountered in synchrotron-based palaeontological researches. This talk will focus on the development and use of these techniques at the University of Regina.

Speaker: Mr. Thomas Tolhurst, Department of Physics, University of Regina
Please download our poster (175 kB) format.