Green River fish preps

[Alex S.]

Hey everyone. I just got back from my first of hopefully many Kemmerer fish trips.

My wife and brought home loads of fossils that's I'll highlight in a trip report.

I brought home 2 larger fish one which the what said was Phareodus which seems to be complete.

 

 

 

i need to glue it down and then prep it from the top but wanted to pick everyone's brains primarily @Ptychodus04 and @RJB but I'm open to all input.

 

I am planning on mixing a thick bit at solution and painting it on the highlighted areas the dark line being the vertical crack underneath the fish then clamp them. Is this the right idea?

 

I was also wondering if I should paint the exposed fish with a thinner solution before I glue it down? I've also got this other fish my wife found that's barely exposed so I haven't ID'd it yet, that is cracked in the same way.

 

 

 

 I'm curious about dry time when I got home there was some condensation on other pieces from being wrapped up.

 

While these were seemingly dry should I wait awhile before glueing them up?

 

Thanks for all your knowledge and expertise.

[RJB]

I'm going to wait for Kris @Ptychodus04 on this one.  He does an excellent job at explaining things.

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

You’re thinking along the right path. You can use thick Paraloid for your glue.

 

Make sure your pieces are free of all rock fragments. Then brush on your glue, fit, and clamp. Allow several days to fully dry. 
 

I would not coat the exposed fish before gluing as you take the chance of slightly changing the alignment of the 2 pieces.

 

As for drying time for the rocks, it can take a few days to weeks depending on how much rain they got recently before your trip and how thick your slabs are. If you can safely unwrap them, this will speed up the drying.

[Alex S.]

Thanks Kris, that makes a lot of sense. I had another question about prepping a branch from GRF I had expected to see darker coloration in cross section at the edge of the slab but it appears to be the same color as the host rock. Is common and how would I go about preparing it? 

[Ptychodus04]

That doesn't actually look like a branch to me. There are often random bumps and ripples in the rock. This looks like that to me. There should be some kind of carbon film if there's actually a plant present. It may be that there's something deeper that is causing the ripple. What does the cross-section look like? 

[Alex S.]

Here's a photo of the cross section. It's by my thumb right where the vertical dark line is.

[Ptychodus04]

I think that you just have a deformity in the rock but there could be something hiding in there. There's nothing obvious on the cross-section but plants can be tricky. I would scribe down from the surface of the bulge a bit to see if you run into a carbon layer. Plants can really deform the rock and then get crushed paper thin. They really are a PITA. I have a bottom cap piece that showed a tall bulge with nothing in cross-section that would up being a reed with a flower bud on the end but I had to go fairly deep to find the plant.

 

Edited Monday at 03:33 PM by Ptychodus04

[Alex S.]

Good to know I'll do that. Thanks for the advice. I am still waiting on my zoic trilobite scribe I ordered 2 months ago so I'll hold off until I get that so I have a bit more control than my Dremel p290.