Feature Paleontology

3-D scans reveal secrets of extinct creatures

New modeling paired with X-ray scanning exposes every angle of hard-to-extract fossils

reconstruction of an arachnid

VIRTUALLY THERE  On a paleontologist’s computer screen, this arachnid moves as it did 410 million years ago.

R. Garwood and J. Dunlop/Journal of Paleontology 2014

By Alexandra Witze

View the video or View the slideshow

All Rachel Racicot wanted to do was look at a fossil. As a paleontology graduate student at San Diego State University, Racicot had scheduled some time with a local hospital’s CT scanner. She was going to examine a 3-million-year-old porpoise jaw.