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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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