Palaeontology

New project enables fossil hunting from home

By T.K. Randall
September 9, 2015

Image: Homo Erectus
Credit: Cicero Moraes / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) From this week onward amateur fossil hunters will have the opportunity to scour one of the most fossil-rich regions of the planet from the comfort of their own homes thanks to an intriguing new endeavor which aims to make high resolution aerial images of the area available online.

The Turkana Basin in Kenya, a region often referred to as the cradle of civilization, has been photographed in intricate detail as part of a crowd sourced research effort to locate signs of previously undiscovered fossils sticking out of the dusty ground.

Among the possible finds at the site are prehistoric species of animals as well as early human ancestors, some of which could even represent missing links in our species' family tree."This is a really exciting project that will allow enthusiasts who can't get to those remote places to be fully involved as ‘citizen scientists' to find new fossils as primary research data," said project manager Adrian Evans of Bradford University.

"The project is enabled by a step-change in imaging technology which allows sub-millimetre ground resolution to be captured. Using this technology we can capture images over fossil bearing landscape at an unprecedented scale."

Those looking to take part can head over to FossilFinder.org and begin their search today.

Source: Independent

Tags: Citizen Science, Fossil