In the basement of a paleontology museum in remote northeastern Brazil, Claudio Silva found himself surrounded by an abundance of fossils from the Araripe Basin. This region is known for its rich fossil deposits, including fish, insects, sea urchins, turtles, and pterosaurs. Silva, a New York University computer scientist, had read an article about a rare pterosaur fossil seized in a police raid, which led him to the Plácido Cidade Nuvens Museum of Paleontology (MPPCN) in Brazil.
Silva, an expert in graphics visualization and geometry processing, saw an opportunity to help digitize the museum’s collection of 11,000 specimens. With the Araripe Basin’s fossils offering exceptional preservation, including soft parts like stomach contents and gill parasites, digitizing these specimens could provide valuable data to the global scientific community. The Araripe Basin has been a target for fossil smugglers, depleting Brazil’s scientific and cultural heritage.
To address the challenges faced by rural paleontology museums in South America, Silva and his team developed a revolutionary scanner called PaleoScan. This portable device uses a high-quality camera to capture raw photos of fossils, which are then processed into 3D models in the cloud. The scanner is cost-effective, easy to operate, and scalable, making it suitable for resource-poor museums in remote areas.
After setting up PaleoScan at MPPCN, Silva and his team have digitized hundreds of fossils, with plans to secure grant funding for scanning the rest of the collection. Museums in Chile and Mexico have shown interest in the scanner, while paleontologists like Jeanette Pirlo and Gerhard Weber see its potential for revolutionizing paleontology in the global south. By democratizing access to fossil data and promoting international collaborations, PaleoScan aims to make scientific knowledge universal.
The digitization of the Araripe Basin’s fossils not only preserves valuable scientific data but also reduces the demand for trafficked fossils. By making fossil scans available online and accessible to researchers worldwide, the project hopes to combat illegal fossil trafficking and promote the sharing of knowledge. As the museum pursues funding for digitizing its full collection, the vision of universalizing science and fostering international collaborations remains at the forefront of this innovative paleontological project.