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Neutron scanning results of suspected sperm whale teeth in concretion (10+ teeth)
mamlambo posted a topic in General Fossil Discussion
A while back I found a concretion containing some rather large teeth. The area was a mid-Miocene coastal deposit here on the South Island of New Zealand. These were my largest teeth yet so I was rather excited, tempered a bit by the fact that it was in a very, veeery hard concretion. I got in contact with Dr Joseph Bevitt at ANSTO where they had a nuclear reactor and are able to do neutron scanning. The instrument is called the Dingo: https://www.ansto.gov.au/our-facilities/australian-centre-for-neutron-scattering/neutron-scattering-instruments/dingo Neutron scanning is needed as it would be able to penetrate this rock where x-rays would have a harder time giving an image with enough contrast. From their website: After getting a temporary export permit from Heritage NZ, I sent the concretion over to ANSTO where it was scanned and then had to sit in a special vault for the radioactivity level to get back to a safe level. The result of the scan was a very cool video (link further below) as well as a stack of TIFF images which can be used to reconstruct a 3D model of the teeth inside the rock! Crazy!! One of the frames from the neutron scanning result: I tried to create the 3D model myself but didn't have the necessary skills, and this is where Andrew Cuff stepped in. He spent hours creating the 3D model which he sent to me. I then loaded the 3D model of the teeth into Blender and combined it with a 3D model (made with a RevoPoint 3D scanner) of the tooth concretion. The result is that you can see exactly where the teeth are INSIDE the concretion!! This is going to make prepping it so much easier. Also, check out Andrew's fossil hunting and prep videos: https://www.youtube.com/@dinoskool/videos Below is an image but have a look at the second video I linked below to see it in 3D, the 2D image doesn't do it justice Here is the video of my finding the concretion, getting it scanned and the resulting video clip: https://youtu.be/BllRDIIsPbw A video of the 3D model fitted into the concretion digitally showing the position of the teeth: https://youtu.be/SIfSAO39I3M