IMAGING PHOSPHATIZED MICROFOSSILS FROM THE EDIACARAN WENG’AN BIOTA USING CONFOCAL LASER SCANNING MICROSCOPY
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Abstract:
Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy(CLSM) is a fluorescence imaging technique using laser and pinhole to obtain images with higher resolution and better contrast compared to conventional optical microscopy. Although CLSM is a powerful tool applied in many fields such as biology, it has not been widely used in palaeontology yet, because not all fossils are auto-fluorescent. However, if fossil matrix could fluoresce excited by laser beam, sharp contrast between fossils and matrix, or between different parts of fossils may be observed. In these cases, researchers can image inside microstructures with CLSM which can’t be clearly visualized by epifluorescent microscope. In this article, we introduced the principle and work flow of sample preparation and imaged phosphatized microfossils from the Ediacaran Weng’an biota with CLSM. Our results suggest that the CLSM can help to obtain images with higher spatial resolution and better contrast in several cases.
