Credit: D. Harazim, et al., Geology
Using a rapid X-ray scanning technique developed for fossil studies at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, researchers studied the detailed chemistry of fossilized burrows, likely produced by sea worms 80 million years ago. These images show a black and white photograph of a cross-section of a fossil sample (left), a false-color scan of the sample's iron content (middle, with iron concentrations shown in lighter shades), and a false-color scan of the phosphorous content (right, with phosphorous concentrations shown in lighter shades).