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Biological Structures Fossils supply the raw data for the history of life over the past 3.5 billion years. However, most fossils have been deformed by geological processes, often significantly distorting the information of extinct species. Removal of such deformation, or retrodeformation, is therefore very important for correct understanding of the organismal evolution that took place on this planet. Many different geological processes could cause fossil deformation. However, the primary and most pertinent cause should be the compaction from the overburden—every fossil had to go through this phase. Volume is typically lost during this phase, coinciding with the reduction of porosity in the matrix. This makes it possible to model the deformation of fossils with simple matrix algebra. An algorithm is being built to enable calculation of the affine transformation that represents the fossil deformation, using the landmark points placed upon 3D images of distorted fossils. This algorithm will be incorporated into a landmark editor that is maintained by computer science colleagues on campus. The method will be available to public upon full implementation.
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