Much of the world’s remaining oil and gas is locked under basalt, a rock that has baffled those attempting to ‘see’ through it. Now, thanks to new techniques developed at Cambridge, imaging beneath basalt is opening up vital new hydrocarbon reserves.

Antarctic Ice Sheet study reveals 8,000-year record of climate change

Artist’s reconstruction of Saccorhytus coronarius, based on the original fossil finds. The actual creature was probably no more than a millimetre in size Credit: Jian Han

The flight team (left to right): Colin Greatwood, Thomas Richardson, Ben Schellenberg, Emma Liu and Kieran Wood. Credits: Universities of Bristol, Cambridge and INSIVUMEH

Image taken by Clare Donaldson with the assistance of USGS and HVO

Slides containing foraminifera (left) and the Quartz tubes (right) are used to covert CO₂ from forams dissolved in acid into graphite for ¹⁴C dating ©Luke Skinner

Image credit: Richard Herd

Life reconstruction of Chilesaurus diegosuarezi

The Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia costata, specimen P40135 from the collections of the South Australia Museum, Adelaide Credit: Alex Liu

Mike Bickle in Utah

Image credit: Emily Mitchell

©Robert Mulvaney

©Alexander Semenov, White Sea Biological Station, Moscow State University

© The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

Brachiopods prove tougher than previously thought ©Elizabeth M Harper

Artist’s reconstruction of the community at Lower Mistaken Point. The positions, sizes and taxonomic identity of the organisms in the reconstruction are based on real data from the surface. This community was dominated by the rangeomorphs, Beothukis plumosa and Trepassia wardae. As these communities were below the photic zone, lighting depicted is from an artificial source.

Air bubbles in ice cores, used to deduce CO₂ in the past.

Well-preserved dinosaur footprints uncovered in East Sussex ©Anthony Shillito

Tooth of the giant extinct shark Megalodon from the late Miocene Gatun Formation of Panama. Photo credit Catalina Pimiento.