Prepping And Preserving.

[Nicholas]

So I managed to get out on a hunt this past weekend, mostly shale and carbonized material single leaves, a few small ferns, and the classic bark impressions that are commonly found in my area.

The matrix is different than any other I've found ever, the rock appears to be shale and has the same coloration and composition as all my other finds... but it is brittle. Very brittle, some of these specimens were soaked as I found them and actually would crumble in my hand. The only noticeable differences in this matrix from what I'm use to is the lack of association with iron in the rock, normally this is a common occurrence, and its vicinity to the ocean... lots and lots of salt water.

The few that I thought were nice and worth preserving once I got home, I set aside to slowly dry. Even during the drying process they cracked, and broke apart. One small fern plate in particular which I like broke into a few pieces, and now I'm attempting to super glue it back together but it isn't taking. Its just absorbing into the thin layers. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about putting this one back together, but I did go over all the edges with the super glue to allow it to sink in and keep it from flaking...

The specimens I left outside for prepping/spliting later got rained on and well became fossil soup. I managed to save a few small single leave specimens but sections which I wanted to try to keep were completely destroyed. I'm currently trying to dry what I managed to salvage and doing my best to use these pieces to practice preservation.

I've thought about an Elmer's glue solution but it requires water, and the water just hurts the fossil and its matrix too much.

So I'm pretty much at a loss, normally I use an Elmer's/water solution on my fossils and it works fine, but this is a whole new set of variables for me. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

[JohnJ]

Nick, since they are plant impressions, I would experiment more with the super glue.

[Terry Dactyll]

Nicholas.... I wonder if paraloid liberally brushed on would work....

Its a good thing you have plenty specimens to practice on, then next time you go collecting in that area you could even take some suitable stabilising solution with you and do them as you find them....

[Nicholas]

Its a good thing you have plenty specimens to practice on, then next time you go collecting in that area you could even take some suitable stabilising solution with you and do them as you find them....

That's typically hard to do because the fossils are surrounded in a a thick clay, they tend to need to be cleaned off and on site with a tide coming in usually isn't the best place to attempt it. I'm kind of stuck on what to do with these ones, but given that this site seems to produce a lot of fossils... I'll be going back so I need to try to learn now to keep me safe in the future.

[JimB88]

I too have collected from really thin paper shale. My solution was to adhere them to a backing (wood, cardboard, etc.) Elmer's worked the best from my experience (it doesn't have so much water as to damage the fossils in my case.)Even using a grout or mortar may work.

Edited November 17, 2010 by JimB88

[Nicholas]

I too have collected from really thin paper shale. My solution was to adhere them to a backing (wood, cardboard, etc.) Elmer's worked the best from my experience (it doesn't have so much water as to damage the fossils in my case.)Even using a grout or mortar may work.

Good suggestion, I'm actually considering stabilizing the back one one using body fill.

[JimB88]

Good suggestion, I'm actually considering stabilizing the back one one using body fill.

just make sure its not an expanding adhesive like Gorilla glue, it will lift the fossil off of the backing as it expands.

[glacialerratic]

What if you wrapped them in Saran or newspaper, and them put them in a cool place to cure? This is what Crinus suggested doing with Arkona Shale, as it cracks when drying otherwise.