Award-winning Coccolithophores in Exhibition

Markus Geisen, (1) ( http://www.awi-bremerhaven.de/People/show?mgeisen )

Ian Probert (2) & Jeremy R. Young ( http://www.nhm.ac.uk/palaeontology/micro/jry/jry.html )

1. Palaeontology Department, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD ( http://www.nhm.ac.uk/ )

2. Laboratoire de Biologie et Biotechnologies Marine, Universite de Caen Basse Normandie, Caen, France.

When we work with coccolithophores we sometimes forget their beauty, strangeness and visual impact. Recently, however, this striking aspect was amply confirmed as a result of Markus Geisen's decision to prepare a false coloured image for a science photography competition. His entry won first prize in one of the categories ("Science Close Up" category of Novartis - Daily Telegraph Visions of Science competition, see http://www.visions-of-science.co.uk/winners2001/Geisen1.htm).

By a happy coincidence the Natural History Museum, London, has recently devoted a space to temporary exhibitions of artwork related to Natural History. We were asked to prepare a temporary exhibition of coccolithophore images and in collaboration with an editor and exhibition designer 14 images of coccospheres were selected, mainly on the basis of image quality and attractiveness but also to illustrate a wide range of morphologies and some of the more interesting structures. A TEM section was included to provide a graphic explanation of the relationship between the coccosphere and the cell and a coccolithophore bloom image (courtesy of S. Groom PML) to show the ecological impact of cocolithophores.

The images were false coloured both to increase the visual impact and to highlight specific features for text reference. In addition, the images have been enlarged to 1m across and make a very attractive exhibition, which the public seem to like. The plate captions presented here are more or less the same as those in the exhibition and show how we have tried to encourage public awareness and understanding of our science, within the constraints of the available text allowance. The exhibition is on display in the public galleries for three months and thereafter will move to our common room. If any other INA members have an opportunity to use the exhibition for public display we would be pleased to hear from you.