I'm investigating ways to image an underwater decaying carcass, so I can observe the disarticulation of skeletal elements without all that dang goopy muscle and fatty tissue getting in the way.
At first I thought I'd look at underwater x-ray (minimal disturbance to the carcass), and it turns out the only people interested in this is the navy! Not for carcasses, but for examining sonar domes on ships without having to dry-dock (Greenawald et al., 1998). So it seems unlikely that this is a feasible option.
At first I thought I'd look at underwater x-ray (minimal disturbance to the carcass), and it turns out the only people interested in this is the navy! Not for carcasses, but for examining sonar domes on ships without having to dry-dock (Greenawald et al., 1998). So it seems unlikely that this is a feasible option.
The Navy: bringing you over-sized x-ray equipment since 1998.
I've read a paper by Richter and Wuttke (2012) that dealt with this by removing carcasses from water and using a portable x-ray to image them. If I can't get my hands on a portable x-ray, then I might have to wheel my stinky carcasses over to Vet Science... should be interesting...
References
Greenawald, E. C., Poranski Jnr, C. F., Levenberry, L. J., Bellinger Jnr., E. T., 1998. Underwater x-ray tomography of composite sonar domes via collimated backscatter imaging. Proc. SPIE 3396, 121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.30151
Richter, A., Wuttke, M., 2012. Analysing the taphonomy of Mesozoic lizard aggregates from Uña (eastern Spain) by X-ray controlled decay experiments. Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, published online. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12549-011-0065-1
