Accelerating the pace of study of exceptional invertebrates from the Herefordshire Lagerstätte

The Herefordshire Lagerstätte (~430 million years old) is a unique fossil deposit that preserves high-fidelity 3D fossils of early invertebrates with soft-tissues. It has yielded a profusion of new data informing the evolution of many groups, and a stream of high-profile publications. However ~98% of specimens are unstudied, because the material requires time-consuming tomographic reconstruction and data preparation to generate 3D models. Targeted selection of data-rich specimens for reconstruction is hence of paramount importance, but at present cannot be achieved in a reliably or rigorously. To bypass this roadblock, we propose to use phase-contrast synchrotron tomography on B18 to scan large numbers of specimens in parallel. This will provide the critical 3D ‘preview’ data required for informed selection of specimens for full reconstruction. Additional benefits will also accrue, further streamlining workflows, and providing new quantitative data to inform models of fossil-formation.