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Abstracts

S4 - Growth-line analysis of the Middle Cambrian brachiopod Vandalotreta djagoran (Kruse, 1990) from the Manuels River Formation, Conception Bay South, Newfoundland, Canada, using Image J and R Austermann G.1*, A. Hildenbrand1, F. J. Cueto Berciano1 & P. Bengtson1 * E-mail: Gregor.Austermann@geow.uni-heidelberg.de Institute of Earth Sciences, Heidelberg University, Im Neuenheimer Feld 234, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany A common method of analysing seasonal growth lines, growth rates and growth patterns in fossil shells, e.g. bivalves or brachiopods, is the time-consuming manual counting and distance measuring of the growth lines. Such manual measuring may lead to inaccuracies in determining the exact position and border of a growth line or an increment, particularly in small fossils. With the help of the platform-independent software packages Image J and R, growth lines and growth patterns in the brachiopod Vandalotreta djagoran (Kruse, 1990) from the Middle Cambrian Manuels River Formation at Conception Bay South, Newfoundland, Canada, were studied. Greyscale images were analysed and growth lines of the ventral valve surface automatically counted. Algorithms for analysing the spectrum produced by Image J were applied in combination with a newly developed brute-force search for the best-match growth-line seasonal cyclicity using Fourier transformations and syntheses. It is shown that this method is faster, easier to use and at least.as accurate as manual measuring and analysis of growth lines and growth patterns. The project is funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, Heidelberg.
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