Abstract
Fossils and fossil bearing materials are in principle irreplaceable and are globally a scarce commodity. Countries with natural fossil collections and known fossil sites, which are only a few, thus do take special care of their “heritage” and fossil findings and in the process enhances the role of non-destructive testing and related examination procedures on these findings. This chapter summarizes the documented research utilizing neutron radiography & tomography and the penetrating power of neutrons in a combined effort with other non-destructive analytic techniques to find answers from the “past”. In the quest to “solve the past”, the role of neutron radiography as a modern, unique, non-invasive and non-destructive analytic technique, is being described through several full length article case studies to assist to answer modern paleontology questions.
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Notes
- 1.
Neutron instruments are presented and described in part II “Experimental methods”.
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De Beer, F.C. (2017). Paleontology: Fossilized Ancestors Awaken by Neutron Radiography. In: Kardjilov, N., Festa, G. (eds) Neutron Methods for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Neutron Scattering Applications and Techniques. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33163-8_7
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