Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-b4m5d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-15T08:34:01.113Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Preparation of serial sections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

Michael R. Sandy
Michael R. Sandy*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio 45469
Get access

Extract

Serial sectioning (also referred to as serial grinding) is used to investigate the internal structures of three-dimensional (rock or fossil). In this process series of sections are ground or cut in sequence through a specimen to reveal its internal structures. The specimen is ground down against an abrasive surface (e.g., abrasive powder on a sheet of steel or a rotating diamond wheel on a lathe) or cut with a saw blade. The details of each section can be recorded by drawing or photography. A permanent record of each surface can be made by taking acetate peels and mounting them in glass slides (Wilson and Palmer, this volume, Chapter 13). Serial section information can be digitized and reconstructed in three-dimensions using computer techniques (Chapman, this volume, Chapter 15).

Type
Internal Anatomy and Microstructure
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 4: Paleotechniques , 1989 , pp. 146 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ager, D.V. 1965. Serial grinding techniques, p. 212–224. In Kummel, B. and Raup, D. (eds.), Handbook of Paleontological Techniques. W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Allman, M., and Lawrence, D.F. 1972. Geological Laboratory Techniques. Blandford Press, London.Google Scholar
Copper, P. 1986. Evolution of the earliest smooth spire-bearing atrypoids (Brachiopoda: Lissatrypidae, Ordovician - Silurian). Palaeontology, 29(4):827–867.Google Scholar
Croft, W.N. 1950. A parallel grinding instrument for the investigation of fossils by serial sections. Journal of Paleontology, 24(6):693–698.Google Scholar
Hageman, S.J. 1988. Image processing and analysis with microcomputers. Journal of Paleontology, 62(3):474–477.Google Scholar
Hendry, R.D., Rowell, A.J., and Stanley, J.W. 1963. A rapid parallel grinding machine for serial sections of fossils. Palaeontology, 6(1):145–147.Google Scholar
Joysey, K.A., and Cutbill, J.L. 1970. Serial sections of fossils prepared by the annular sawing technique. Systematics Association Special Volume Number 3, p. 89–95.Google Scholar
Kelly, S.R.A. 1988. Cretaceous wood-boring bivalves from western Antarctica with a review of the Mesozoic Pholadidae. Palaeontology, 31(2):341–372.Google Scholar
Muir-Wood, H.M. 1934. On the internal structure of some Mesozoic Brachiopoda. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 223:511–567.Google Scholar
Owen, E.F. 1955. The use of sugar solution in the differentiation of the internal structures of the Upper Chalk brachiopods. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 66:369–370.Google Scholar
SandY, M.R. 1986. Brachiopod systematics and the transverse serial sectioning method: some recommendations for this technique and clarification of a taxonomic problem assisted by this method. Biostratigraphie du Paleozoique, 4:143–150.Google Scholar
Westbroek, P. 1967. Morphological observations with systematic implications on some Palaeozoic Rhynchonellida from Europe, with special emphasis in the Uncinulidae. Leidse Geologische Mededelingen, 41:1–82.Google Scholar
Westbroek, P., Hesper, B., and Neijndorff, F. 1976. Three-dimensional stereographic representation of serial sections. Journal of Geology, 84:725–730.Google Scholar
Williams, A. 1965. Techniques for preparation of fossil and living brachiopods, p. H251–H256. In Moore, R.C. (ed.), Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part H (1), Brachiopoda. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, Kansas.Google Scholar