Palaeoceanographers at Southampton University gain boost to climate change research with the installation of four new stereomicroscopes
Geologists at the Southampton Oceanography Centre have received a boost to their research into past climates.
The magnifying power of four new stereomicroscopes from Leica Microsystems is now enabling scientists in the department to see and resolve far more than they could before.
In order to ascertain oceanic and climate conditions of over 100 million years ago, researchers at Southampton are studying the fossil records of deep sea sediment cores.
One of the key fossil organisms studied is a marine plankton related to amoeba.
The calcite shell of Foraminifera contains chemical tracers giving indications of ice volume, as well as past ocean temperatures, pH and productivity, all of which can provide highly useful information to climate modellers. Stereomicroscopes are an essential tool for researchers when picking out organisms to the species level in sediment cores drilled from sea beds from around the world.
"The samples we study often require identification of foraminifera in the 125mm to 63mm size fraction, so the increased magnifying power of the new Leica stereomicroscopes is enabling us to pick out smaller size fractions than previously possible," said Paul Wilson, reader in palaeoceanography, University of Southampton. "This combined with the ability to see far greater detail in the Foraminifera shells means that we can now separate and identify more species by being able to easily view minuscule structural variations, such as shell pores".
The stereomicroscopes installed at Southampton were selected for differing roles within the department.
Two new high powered MZ16 microscopes provide over 100X magnification for highly detailed taxanomic studies, while the two new MZ9.5 stereomicroscopes are used for more routine picking and identification work. "Having a range of Leica microscopes provides an ideal continuum for our studies of organisms of different size fractions.
"Furthermore, since they are fully modular we have complete reverse compatibility between these microscopes and others we already have" added Heiko Palike, lecturer in palaeoceanography, University of Southampton.
The MZ16 and MZ9.5 stereomicroscopes are part of Leica's broad range of high quality modular stereomicroscopes used for numerous precision research and industrial applications.
The fully apochromatic MZ16 is said to be the world's first stereomicroscope to magnify microstructures up to a resolution of 840Lp/mm.
The MZ9.5 can zoom from 6.3x to 60x (10x eyepieces, 1x objective) with exceptionally high image contrast and image sharpness to the edge of the image field.
Typical of all Leica's modular stereomicroscopes is their expandability.
This includes an extensive selection of objectives, video and digital cameras, as well as image management software which is also available for these microscopes.
