#fossil preparation

[fossilprep]

NEW RAPTOR HAND! This is the partial hand of a raptor dinosaur that we collected from our super-site "Jack's bonebed" in 2024. It does not look quite right to be from the troodontid raptor that we have been collecting from this site, so we think it is from another skeleton that we have only just identified coming out of the same bed - a parrot-mimic oviraptorid (technically a Caenagnathid). We have a few tentative pieces of this skeleton so far, but it's looking really promising!

What's especially cool about this specimen is that it contains the "semi-lunate carpal" (meaning: half-moon wrist bone, outlined in red). This strange little bone was really important in the "birds are dinosaurs" debate: when the raptor bends its wrist, the twisted shape of the semi-lunate carpal means the arm folds like the wing of a bird. Super cool!

I purposely left a bit of matrix between the bones for stability. The bone is fairly crunchy and cracked so there was a little Apoxie gap filling plus the tiny cracks in the bones had to be meticulously cleaned grain by grain. All work done under a compound lens microscope between 12-50x magnification.

From US Public Lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management - Montana/Dakotas

[void-of-unparalleled-chaos]

Today myself and a coworker had to turn a fossil 180° around so I could get access to the ventral side.

The first problem? Said fossil was a Barosaurus cervical vertebrae that is, no joke, half as tall as me.

The second problem? It was on a table alongside a second cervical vertebrae, meaning that there was no room for us to rotate the fossil (still too heavy to lift barehanded) as the entire table was crammed with just the two jackets.

We ended up using a forklift to give us extra space as we rotated it. Problem 1 and 2 solved.

Problem 3? After rotating, the jacket was hanging halfway off the table and needed to be pushed back on all the way. Unfortunately the table is wheeled, so it resulted in a ridoculous looking system where I grabbed the table and threw my entire weight backwards while my coworker pushed the jacket forward with all of his might.

My supervisor walked in, watched us expressionless for maybe 30 seconds, and then walked away without a word.

Not long after we got the jacket set up, I realized that the wheels on the table are in fact able to lock.

[romigodon]

[uk-fossils]

6" Parkinsonia dorsetensis Fossil Ammonite – Jurassic Coast – Burton Bradstock, Dorset – UK Authentic Specimen

Discover a stunning, genuine 6-inch fossil of Parkinsonia dorsetensis, a spectacular ammonite from the famed Jurassic Coast of Burton Bradstock, Dorset, UK. This exceptional specimen was recovered from the Inferior Oolite Formation, dating back to the Middle Jurassic period—approximately 174 to 163 million years ago.

Parkinsonia dorsetensis is recognised for its distinctive ribbing and strong coiling, indicative of its nektonic (free-swimming) marine lifestyle. This fossil exhibits clearly preserved suture lines and a robust shell structure, making it a prized example for collectors, educators, or those with an appreciation for natural history.

This fossil was carefully discovered by our expert field team, Alister and Alison, on the 17th of January 2025. It has since undergone meticulous cleaning, preparation, and preservation by Alison to ensure both aesthetic and structural integrity. You will receive the exact specimen shown in the photographs.

Geological Context:

Location: Burton Bradstock, Dorset, UK

Formation: Inferior Oolite

Geological Period: Middle Jurassic

Stage: Bajocian

Biozone: Parkinsonia Zone

Depositional Environment: Shallow marine carbonate platform

Taxonomy:

Species: Parkinsonia dorsetensis

Family: Parkinsoniidae

Superfamily: Stephanoceratoidea

Order: Ammonitida

Notable Features:

Exceptional preservation with ribbed ornamentation

Rare species from the Parkinsonia Biozone

100% authentic and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity

Prepared by hand with great care for collectors and display

Please Note: Scale cube = 1cm. Full measurements are available in the listing photos.

This listing offers a rare chance to own a scientifically significant and visually striking fossil from Britain’s iconic Jurassic Coast. Don’t miss your opportunity to add this spectacular ammonite to your collection.

[pessimiavium]

YESSS- Geologists won!!

[tuliptiger]

In true Artfight fashion I've had it choose for me and I'm on team crystal this year >:)

[prepareforclimatecrisis]

"This means that in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we need to develop new hybrid crops, adopt policies to discourage building in flood-prone or wildfire-prone areas, build seawalls and dikes–among other approaches–to counter the effects of rising sea levels, extended drought, and more intense and frequent storms."

By MIT Sloan Office of Communications, Jan 17, 2023

#jail climate criminals  #we want climate action now

  #climate change  #cambio climático #climate crisis

  #prepare for climate change  #greenwashing

  #big oil   #fossil fuel industry #plastic  #climate washing

  #floods  #climate activism   #calentamiento globa

   #medio ambiente   #IPPC   #prepare for climate change

   #climate hope  #sea level rise  #late stage capitalism

 #victims of capitalism  #klimakatastrophe   #klimawandel

 #changement climatique  #qihou bianhua

 #izmeneniye klimata  #cambiamento climatico

 #気候変動 #जलवायु परिवर्तन   #jalavaayu parivartan

   #das Alterações Climáticas

[fossilprep]

Preparing a Lambeosaurus

Jacket 2: articulated cervical series

Second jacket containing four articulated cervical vertebrae

There was a liberal application of thin, medium, and then thick Paraloid B-72 followed by supporting the broken surfaces with Carbowax strengthened by cheese cloth. Matrix removal was mainly done with a Microjack #3 under a microscope.

Steve Clawson applying carbowax to cheesecloth with a brush so it adheres to the cross sections of the centra

Cheesecloth coated with Carbowax functions similarly to rebar in concrete - it strengthens the Carbowax, which has the advantage of dissolving in warm water.

Lateral view of the vertebrae with portions of the centra missing

Part of the vertebrae were broken off and situated in a rock that also had some tendons and a quadratojugal.

After being carefully removed and cleaned, the missing piece was glued on with thick Paraloid B-72 and left to dry overnight.

Finally, gaps in the bone were filled in with Apoxie putty and the whole thing was given a coat of Paraloid.

The jacket lines up with the neck elements in the skull jacket. The vertebrae were compressed post-burial making them look smaller than they were in life.

[void-of-unparalleled-chaos]

Fossil lab has decided to take me on as a part time employee rather than unpaid intern. I am absolutely normal about this (I am lying)

[fossilprep]

Progress is being made on the tyrannosaur block! Steve is removing pounds of matrix to expose the neck of Tantalus/Denver's Tyranno/Little Denver (nickname debate ongoing) with the ZPT-BR (ZOIC Bronto). This dinosaur was found in the "death pose", meaning its neck is bent over its back. The top of the head should be near the hip region.

[void-of-unparalleled-chaos]

What I spent an hour trying to do: Glue a piece of fragmented bone back onto the rest of the fossil

What I actually did: Made the matrix absorb a shit ton of PaleoBond so that it was super hard to chip off

After about an hour and a half I finally managed to get it to stay only for another fragment between it and the rest of bone to fall off.

[fossilprep]

With the completion of the cervical block, the holotype of Daspletosaurus wilsoni has been fully prepared. Approximately 350 hours shared between both Annamarie Fadorsen and I.

[void-of-unparalleled-chaos]

I think I spent too long in the warehouse today. I swear that I can still smell buzz saws struggling to cut through rock.

In case anyone is curious, it smells like burning. But not like a bonfire or wood, closer to burning plastic but not quite. Sparking metal has it's own particular scent.

Anyway it's been 6 hours and I've already showered the dust off of me so idk why I'm still catching whiffs of it. I might be going insane.

[stayclowninbbgs]

ART FIGHT!!!

[phasyhazy]

https://artfight.net/~phasyhazy

come fight me >:)

[fossilprep]

There's a lot this article touches on, but the parts about fossil preparation are kind of in poor taste. I'll go over some of it under the cut.

There's a reason we usually don't publish on things we prepare. They say it right here - we can literally, whether purposeful or accidental, modify fossils as we see fit. We could imitate pathologies or create marks with air scribes or picks that are misinterpreted as pathologies, remove or obscure parts of a fossil that may be diagnostic, etc. (Of course we don't endear to do these things, they're just possible).

Whether through inexperience or poor dexterity some budding preparators can cause damage that only someone with a trained eye could notice. Preparators aren't always required to be trained in the sciences or have thorough anatomical knowledge, and thus can reconstruct things wrong, without scientific guidance. Like filling holes where there's supposed to be… holes! Like a fenestrum or foramen, for example. This is why we have references, but more importantly, we do the minimum unless instructed to do otherwise by a supervisor or exhibits team - one of a few scenarios where a curator can rightfully step in.

This is why we're trained to preserve almost any bone we see. Often there are small isolated bone chunks hovering in matrix that are thrown in a box with the specimen. A lot of pieces can't be reattached because they're too weathered or of indeterminate origins (“IBF’s” for short).

"Creating" something "artistic" is another way of implying we're making it up as we go.

If someone hands me a fossil and tells me to look at this "multimedia sculpture", I'd be confused. It's a fossil, not an art project.

Academic fossil preparation is fundamentally a scientific endeavor that also requires artistic abilities, but not creativity. We use various methods that are tried and true (and sometimes experiment with new ones) to expose an element from matrix.

The act of preparing a fossil is not providing new data. The fossil itself is the data. We just make it available. That being said, if we provide measurements, take and analyze samples of the matrix for various analyses, then that's providing valuable data. Would that warrant an authorship? Maybe.

This raises another question though. If anyone who worked on a fossil gets an authorship, then can authorship compound?

The person who found the fossil but didn't do anything with it afterwards - just dug it up and sent it to the lab, for example. Do they get to be an author? On our field crews we have up to 30 people over the whole season. 30 coauthors and 99% of them are not scientists.

The collections manager who just painted a number on it, catalogued it, and put it away?

How about the curator who allowed a researcher access to the collection who didn't collect any data but just answered some emails and opened the drawer for it to be studied?

The land owner who gave you permission to dig?

Finally, the preparator who just exposed it from the rock. They do more science inherently than the others, but if no parts of the scientific method were conducted and no data was produced (save for the fossil simply being brought back into the world), do they get an authorship?

tl;dr We don't need authorships for the act of preparing fossils unless we provide data and go through the scientific process (like what's usually required for any authorship). Many parts of the process is not science. Just acknowledge our work in your paper and we'll be more than happy.