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2019 will be the fifth year The Micropalaeontological Society will be running the Microfossil Image Competition. The outstanding success of the last four years is reflected by the creation of our annual Micropalaeontology Calendar! Each year, the calendars have required two print runs and have sold out! A summary of the winning images can be found here (2014, 2015 2016, 2017, 2018) whilst a Flickr archive of all submitted images can be found here.

We would like to continue this success and The Micropalaeontological Society is therefore pleased to announce the start of the 2019/20 Image Competition. All TMS members are invited to submit images of microfossils. Non-members are also encouraged to take part. An overall winning image will be selected and eleven joint runner-up images will be chosen for use in a TMS calendar for 2020.

We will be accepting images until 30th September 2019 at 2359 Pacific Standard Time. This will provide the competition panel sufficient time to select the best 12 images for the calendar, get the calendar designed and subsequently printed in time for distribution towards the end of the year.

All images are judged by the TMS committee (mix of early career and senior scientists from a variety of institutions), however not all committee members take part – only those who are able to. We give committee members a choice to participate, as it is recognised that competition judging is external to their main committee role. Thus this activity is made fully inclusive i.e. personal and caring responsibilities are taken into account. Images are all anonymised to ensure the judging process is fair and free from bias. The judging process in general will be double blind (the panel is never announced publicly)

Image submissions should be of micropalaeontology-related material. The subject can be an individual specimen or an assemblage and it can be a fossil or a living organism from a microfossil producing group. The type of image is also entirely open, and can include microscope photographs (reflected light, compound), SEM images or other innovative visual techniques, or more traditional artwork. Micropalaeo-geochem hybrid scientists are most welcome to send in images.

Twelve winning images will be selected for the calendar, with one image being chosen as the overall winner of the 2019/20 Image Competition! The winner will receive €200. All twelve winners will of course receive free copies of the calendar in addition to a certificate!

The society will print a fixed number of these calendars in the first instance, with additional print runs possible depending on demand. The society will charge a small fee for the purchase of a calendar – the price is to be confirmed but will be kept low, with all proceeds contributing towards supporting TMSoc activities. Prices will be around £10 (UK), £12 (EU) and £14 (International). Prices include postage.

Images should be submitted via this form https://forms.gle/ZjpLLqMpK4pMsMzM6 OR via email (Download Form Here). Please put TMS Calendar Competition Submission as the subject title.

Submissions should be high-resolution (300dpi) JPEG or TIFF files (less than 20mb).  If you have any problems please contact us.

– Your image blurb should be easily understood by a member of the public (test out your blurb on a family member if you aren’t sure!)

– Do not include anything within the blurb which might identify you, for example an sample site, or laboratory location that your image was taken in. If you are selected as a winner you will be able to refine your blurb, this is just a precaution we are taking to make sure the judging process is fully anonymised.

The Micropalaeontological Society is delighted to announce the winner of the 2018 Micropalaeontology Image Competition!

The overall image winner was submitted by Robert P. Speijer from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium, with his beautiful image of the foraminifera Nummulites involutus Schaub, from the Ypresian clays near Kortrijk, Belgium. The image is a sperfect equatorial thin-section through a small (~ 3 mm) excellently preserved nummulite, and was scanned with a GE-Phoenix Micro-CT and the image was modified in Picasa. Not only does Robert win the competition’s first prize of €200, but also has his image included on the front cover of our TMSoc2019 Calendar (see above)!

On behalf of the Society we would like to congratulate Robert on his success. Eleven additional winners were selected from the fantastic submissions, and are on display below! A wide variety of microfossils and imaging techniques have been championed this year, and we are already looking forward to next year’s competition.

The twelve winning images have been incorporated into the 2019 Micropalaeontology Calendar, which will soon be available for purchase! Like last year, the calendar has been produced in spiral-bound A4 landscape format with one page per month.

A full list of the winners can be found below:

Robert P. Speijer, KU Leuven, Belgium (overall winner) – An equatorial section through for foraminifera Nummulites involutus Schaub. This is a small (~ 3 mm) excellently preserved nummulite from the Ypresian clays near Kortrijk, Belgium.

• Anieke Brombacher, University of Southampton, UK – Surrounded by a glowing halo of spines and photosymbionts, planktonic foraminifera live at the centre of their own personal universe. Orbulina universa in particular would make an excellent solar system. Drawing made using soft pastels on black paper. It is based on a live Orbulina universa studied during a workshop on culturing planktonic foraminifera on Catalina Island in 2015. @jfabrombacher
• Sarah Kachovich, University of Queensland, Australia – ‘It is what is inside that counts’ – Before and after shots of a perfect micro-surgery of the Radiolaria Hollandosphaera hexagonium, collected on-board IODP Expedition 362. Many radiolarian groups are impossible to recognise based on external features alone, but by mechanically breaking the outer sphere of the Hollandosphaera hexagonium specimen, the characteristic initial tetrapetaloid structure with four wide pores (diagnostic of the family Hexalonchidae) was revealed. @WOMEESA
• Giles Ford, University of Creative Arts, Farnham, UK –  ‘Fossilarium’ – Mixed media painting based on a thin section of Oolites and rounded skeletal particles found in La Puya Formation, Western Venezuela. Painting on canvas and acetates using Oil, Indian Ink & collaged photographic transfers. The original artwork is approximately 4ft by 5ft. @GfordGiles
• Giles Ford, University of Creative Arts, Farnham, UK – ‘Anthropocene Blossom’ – A mixed media painting juxtaposing collaged micropaleontology thin section images interwoven with cherry blossom photography and art history. The original artwork is approximately 4ft by 5ft. @GfordGiles
• Kristopher Maedke-Russell, Savannah State University – An individual of the diatom species Surirella striatula found in a sediment core collected from Raccoon Key, GA, USA.
• Lucy Roberts, University College London, UK – A Cyprideis torosa (brackish water ostracod) valve (c. 1mm) collected from a salt marsh in Kent. The purple highlights the calcium carbonate content of the ostracod shell and the green/yellow colour highlights the silica of the diatoms present on the valve surface. @lucyrroberts
• Inge van Dijk, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research – Scanning electron microscope image of Archaias angulatus. The specimen was cultured in controlled laboratory conditions and geochemical composition of the shell was analyzed by laser ablation ICP-MS. Ablation holes are 60 µm and the overall shell diameter is approx. 700 µm. Image by @ingevDijk   @NIOZnieuws 
• Sabine Keuter, Hebrew University, Israel – Image of a tintinnid (a ciliate of the choreotrich taxon Tintinnida), sampled at a depth of 80m in summer in the Gulf of Aqaba,. The tintinnid’s lorica (vase-shaped shell)  is about 60 µm long and is almost exclusively made out of Emiliania huxleyi coccoliths. (@RedSeaPlankton)
• Miguel Méndez Sandín, CNRS/Sorbonne Université, France – A selection of Polycystines (Radiolaria) collected at various depths in the Westearn Mediterranean Sea and in the North Pacific, off Japan.
• Lyndsey Fox, University of Hull, – ‘An unwelcome interloper’ Diatom trapped in the spines of a foraminifera. Specimen collected in 2013 by the TARA expedition (Pacific Ocean). @lynzfox
• Paul Minton, University College London, UK – The aperture of the planktonic foraminifera Paragloborotalia siakensis, showing some recrystallisation and nannofossils. Scale bar is 20 µm. @pminton3

Winning Images

Pricing Table

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Please note, calendars are due to be ready for delivery by 10th November, so please be patient if purchasing calendars before this date

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