This goal of project was to take a black and white scanning electron microscope image, colorize it and make worthy of a journal cover. It worked and the resulting image was used as the cover for the August 2012 issue of Geology, the journal of the Geological Society of America.

The credit for getting the cover goes to UNL assistant professor of geomicrobiology and microbial biogeochemistry, Karrie Weber, who came up with the awesome research & original microscope images.

Moqui marbles, unusual balls of rock that can be found rolling around the southwestern U.S. sandstone regions, were formed roughly 2 million years ago with the help of microorganisms. This discovery by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln research team has implications for finding life on Mars and for better understanding Earth’s past.

Read more about Moqui marbles from this UNL news release.

Image copyright University of Nebraska-Lincoln