Molecular Imaging Center (MIC), Department of Radiology Presents our Speaker for a Special MIC Seminar Series: Preclinical and Basic Research Using Imaging Based Analysis

Nathan Carroll, PhD student
USC Earth Sciences
Natural History Museum of LA County

High fidelity dinosaur feather preservation revealed by micro-CT imaging rare and over-looked fossils

All MIC users, USC faculty, researchers, students and staff are invited!

RSVP to Linda De Marco at [email protected] by May 7, 2019

Summary: Recent advances in the field of feather research have revealed much about the microstructural and three-dimensional components of modern feathers, as well as the genetic and molecular signaling that controls their morphogenesis. The origin of feathers has been informed by a growing number of well-preserved fossils, largely preserved as compression fossils in rare and temporally sporadic lake deposits. These fossils display informative macro structures of feathers such as the main supporting rachis and branching barbs but features in the microstructural range (10-100 µm) are difficult to interpret with this mode of fossilization. This study utilizes exceptionally preserved feather specimens from Cretaceous amber and coprolites scanned at the Keck Molecular Imaging Center. A combination of optical and micro CT imaging reveals three-dimensional contiguous macro to nanoscale structures, some reported for the first time from the Mesozoic. The preservation of morphogenetically informative feather characters in amber and coprolites at multiple scales can provide insight into extinct and extant feather development.