A peculiar connection between image processing and geology: a new preprint by a Master student

Symbolic picture for the article. The link opens the image in a large view. — Two interpretations of the same procedure. Top (Geology): A spike in extinction rate and the corresponding rate of last fossil occurences that is preserved in the fossil record. Bottom (Image processing): a pixel and its blurred version. Both parts of the picture reflect the same mathematical operation and can be taken as graphical representations of each other.

8. September 2018

Connecting seemingly unrelated fields in science can yield surprising and fruitful insights and be the cause of great surprise. Who could have guesses that the way the geological record hides extinctions from us is mathematically equivalent to the methods teenagers use hide their pimples on their facebook profile pictures?

If you want to know more about the peculiar connection discovered by our Paleobiology student Niklas Hohmann, check out his latest preprint:

Reversing Time Averaging and Reconstructing Extinction Rates with Approaches from Image Processing

Contact information: Niklas.Hohmann[at]fau.de