micropaleontology
my-kro-pay-lee-on-TOL-uh-jee
Definition
The branch of paleontology that focuses on fossils too small to be studied without a microscope, such as radiolarians.
Etymology
Derived from the Greek 'mikros' (small), 'palaios' (ancient), and 'ontos' (being) combined with the suffix '-logy' (study of). It entered English in the late 19th century as a specialized scientific term.
In the news
The article uses the term to describe the conventional study of microscopic fossils, noting that traditional methods are often 'blind' to specific organisms trapped in black shale.
Scientists looked inside a rock pellet smaller than a grain of rice and found a 445-million-year-old world preserved within it — more than 20 microscopic marine organisms, including a species never seen before
Read the full article ↗ScienceBlog.com