Digital Atlas of the Skull
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 6 Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Volume 19, Supplement to Number 2 q 1999 by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology INTRODUCTION TO ALLIGATOR: DIGITAL ATLAS OF THE SKULL TIMOTHY ROWE1,2,3, CHRISTOPHER A. BROCHU1,2,3,4, MATTHEW COLBERT1,3, JOHN W. MERCK, JR.1,2,3, KYOKO KISHI3, EMIN SAGLAMER3 and SHEILA WARREN3 1Department of Geological Sciences; 2Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory, Texas Memorial Museum; 3Center for Instructional Technologies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712; and 4Current address: Department of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605 INTRODUCTION ful to a wide segment of the audience for this journal. The core technology is industrial-grade high-resolution X-ray CT, which A CD-ROM (Compact DiscÐRead Only Memory) included is emerging as a powerful new tool for morphologists (e.g., with this memoir presents a serial-section study of the skull of Rowe, 1996a, b; Rowe et al., 1993, 1995, 1997; Cifelli et al., the modern American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis. The 1996; Cifelli and de Muizon, 1998a, b; Rougier et al., 1998), CD-ROM contains a three-dimensional (3-D) dataset of high- as for Earth scientists in general (e.g., Carlson et al., 1995; resolution X-ray Computed Tomographic (CT) `slices' through Carlson and Denison 1992; Denison and Carlson, 1997; Ryan the entire skull of a young specimen. The dataset includes 1391 and Kappelman, 1997; Rowe et al., 1997). A second technology separate digital CT images, each of which displays an approx- is the multimedia `authoring' software that was used to build imately 250 mm (0.25mm) thick slice through the specimen.
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