The shell of a tiny marine snail could be a model for better armor for soldiers and military vehicles, scientists in Massachusetts said.

The shell of the scaly-foot snail can dissipate an amount of energy that would cause weaker shells to break, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a release Tuesday.

The snail lives on the floor of the Indian Ocean near hydrothermal vents where it is exposed to temperature fluctuations and attack from crabs, said researcher Christine Ortiz, a member of the university's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.

Crab claws squeeze the snail's shell, sometimes for days, generating mechanical energy, Ortiz wrote in the Jan. 18 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The snail's shell dissipates mechanical energy through a surface shell of embedded iron sulfide granules, a thick organic middle layer and a calcified inner layer.

The middle layer absorbs much of the energy during attack and may also dissipate heat -- important considerations when designing military armor, Ortiz said.