Fossil Labeling

[jpc]

WhiteOut is known to fail fairly quickly. It gets brittle and flakes off, taking the number with it. As soon as I found this out I switched to Titanium white acrylic paint. Its also cheap and easy to find... hobby and art supply stoers. I believe Davidson et al mention this in the pdf mentioned in this thread. I also use a .05 or is it.005 Micron pen... their smallest size. Treat it carefully and it will last a long time. I find Koh-I-Noor pens to be a lot of work to clean. And I'm lazy. The paper also suggests covering the number with a layer of clear paraloid. I skip this step.

[Wrangellian]

WhiteOut is known to fail fairly quickly. It gets brittle and flakes off, taking the number with it. As soon as I found this out I switched to Titanium white acrylic paint. Its also cheap and easy to find... hobby and art supply stoers. I believe Davidson et al mention this in the pdf mentioned in this thread. I also use a .05 or is it.005 Micron pen... their smallest size. Treat it carefully and it will last a long time. I find Koh-I-Noor pens to be a lot of work to clean. And I'm lazy. The paper also suggests covering the number with a layer of clear paraloid. I skip this step.

So far my whiteout has held, as long as I don't scratch it or anything. If they start to flake off on their own I'll replace them with white acrylic.. I might even have some of that around here somewhere....

As for pens, I've been using Staedtler 'pigment liner' pens, it says they are indelible, "waterproof on paper" and lightfast, and I've tried rubbing them off with my finger after they're dried and they don't smear. But I suppose it can't hurt to put coat of something clear over that to protect it, if I can find any of that B72 stuff.

[FossilDAWG]

Lately I've been printing labels with a Brother label maker. Some folks I know at the CDC (Center for Disease Control) use these to label archived samples, which are stored in liquid nitrogen. They tested a variety of labeling methods and these worked best, but of course the conditions are completely different than fossil storage. Anyway, I use a system that has a 2 or 3 letter code for the locality, plus 2 letters for the state or province. That way I can use the same or similar locality code for different states/provinces. If there are particular horizons I wish to distinguish at a specific locality, I can indicate that with a number following the letters. For example, I use BBMD for Brownie's Beach, Maryland. If I know the specimen came from Shattuck's unit 10 (the most prolific shell layer), I indicate that as BBMD1, but loose specimens picked up on (or sieved from) the beach are just BBMD. I also follow the locality code with a specimen number. I use 1/2 inch label tape, and print 3 rows of labels, so when I cut them out the individual label is fairly small, but quite legible. The tape is laminated, and quite sticky on the back (once the protective covering is removed. If the specimen is too soft or crumbly for the label, I'll make a consolidated flat area with glue to put the label on. For small specimens, the container gets the label.

Example of a label strip before cutting it up:

Example of a label on a specimen. The specimen is a Dakoticancer australis from northeastern Mississippi (BSMS):

Other side of the Dakoticancer:

I've just recently started using these labels, so I honestly don't know how they will hold up long term.

Don

Edited January 31, 2011 by FossilDAWG

[Ordovician_Odyssey]

that is what i do

[xonenine]

I found making labels for the really tiny stuff onerous, and the labels so overwhelm the specimen in size, but paleopix and some smelling salts I had lying around helped me realize I can leave the tiny specimens as they are in nice uniform clear screw top coin vials, and code and make reference sheets for the vials.

Nice.

[Wrangellian]

Good ideas.

As for individual labels to accompany fossils, the format I use (and the info you ideally want to indicate for each specimen) is:

TAXON . . . Catalog number

Genus species Describer(?) year

Period, Epoch, Age [=Series/Stage], xxx m.y. [=million years]

Site / Section, Member, Formation, Group

Location (Town/County/State/Province/Country)

Collected by: _____, date

So for example my crinoid that I posted in the "in situ photos" thread would be labeled thus:

CRINOID: Tz405

Uintacrinus socialis ______ ____

Upper Cretaceous: Upper Santonian, ~84 m.y.

Haslam Fm., Nanaimo Group

Upper part of Mt Tzuhalem site (north slope of Mtn)

near Duncan, Vancouver Island...

Coll. E. Oscar, Apr. 2010

For educational purposes I might add at the bottom a comment, like

"Stemless (free-floating) crinoid, Upper Santonian index fossil".

That's just how I do it. No doubt everyone will have their own variation.

[xonenine]

a decorative label, from Haeckel prints...the info from the small label template also fits this template for 2 sided printing

Edited October 30, 2011 by xonenine

[erose]

So far my whiteout has held, as long as I don't scratch it or anything. If they start to flake off on their own I'll replace them with white acrylic.. I might even have some of that around here somewhere....

As for pens, I've been using Staedtler 'pigment liner' pens, it says they are indelible, "waterproof on paper" and lightfast, and I've tried rubbing them off with my finger after they're dried and they don't smear. But I suppose it can't hurt to put coat of something clear over that to protect it, if I can find any of that B72 stuff.

I also used white out for years with no apparent problem. Then we moved. Different climate, heat and humidity. It all went bad. I invested in the archival materials: white and clear "paint" and as a draftsman I already owned technical pens & the proper ink (Although the disposable pens are mighty nice too). I also opened a few packages to find fossils had turned to dust or otherwise shattered into a zillion flakes. This included St Clair material and some Cretaceous turtle bone from Georgia. Major drag. Texas, and especially this summer, has been brutal on my collection.

Lately I have been doing some cardboard box excavation out in the garage. There were things that I wrapped back in 1996 (NY Times) before one of many moves. In some cases the newspaper was still fine but the silverfish got at the labels and chewed them up. Luckily all of those older specimens did have a number and a page in the printed catalogs I keep. My small mineral collection did not fare so well. Most of the small numbers glued on with epoxy had flaked off. After unwrapping about the fifth one I realized what had happened and looked for the tiny number labels.

So I'm actively working to move stuff out of the garage and into the house where at least the temps, and humidity to some degree, will be less extreme. Gonna build some nice new cabinets as well. Maybe even go archival with those as well staying away from materials that off gas such as Oak and MDF.

[Texas-Tunnel Rat]

I just use Excell on mine.

But I also code into databses also.

It comes down to preference and professionalism.

[xonenine]

a medium Haeckel print label, and the medium info label

Edited October 30, 2011 by xonenine

[kipper]

This topic is food for thought. Although I have species, location, age, and date collected, I've always just hand written the details on a sticky label and posted it on the back of the fossil. I can see the problem with smaller specimens but mine are all large enough to take a label. I can see though that I need to be a little more scientific in my methods having read what everyone else does!

[Wrangellian]

erose Re:

Sounds like a nightmare. I'll be sure to not move somewhere with a drastically different climate. I own too many valuable items that are adapted to my climate, like musical instruments. I once heard that the lifespan of a piano in Hawaii is only about 10 years.

Anyway if I notice any changes in my whiteout/etc you can be sure I'll immediately redo the works with archival paint/pens - or just donate it all to the museum and let them handle it!

(I'm trying to upload a pic but it's not going... dont know why)

Edited October 28, 2011 by Wrangellian

[Coco]

(I'm trying to upload a pic but it's not going... dont know why)

Very often, the reason is the pic is too heavy. Here, they must be less than 2 Mo.

Coco

[Wrangellian]

Yes I know, my file was less than 2MB but I think it was during the website transition that I was trying, so maybe there were problems there.

Here is what I was trying to post for people to use if they'd like - medium size labels I drew up a while back for display purposes, with all the important fields:

Just fill in your name after "From the collection of" and print out on an 8.5x11" page and cut out.

I might be able to squeeze 8 of them on a page, will have to try...

Edited October 30, 2011 by Wrangellian

[Wrangellian]

Hopefully people notice me resurrecting this thread! - this seems the best place since my question is a continuation of the above conversation:

I've been thinking lately about what to use instead of the black pen on whiteout method... the 'approved' methods described above all seem a bit onerous for someone who has more than 700 fossils to do or redo, I was thinking the easiest thing would be if there was such a thing as a white pen (for dark shale) that can be used directly on the rock without the need for a layer of paraloid or anything. I guess it would need to be a fine felt tip type for rough(ish) rock. It would also have to be rather thin fluid so it doesn't flake off like whiteout, and also reasonably waterproof and lightfast. Anyone know if such a thing exists and what it's called? -brand etc?

[Bullsnake]

I just searched 'white pens', and there are some available (for sale), but there is little, or no information on the design attributes or specific uses. Such as, 'fine tip' is pretty general. You just don't know how 'fine'.

The acrylic paint background really seems about the most feasible to me, however, that got me thinking. If you have a lot of small fossils, you will inevitably be using a large number of characters to code each specimen. So, how about using different colors of paint to designate the type of fossil, perhaps by phylum.

For instance, numbers on a white background woud be brachiopods, but numbers on a red background woud be echinoids, so your catalog would be color coded accordingly. That way you could re-use numbers; the color would direct you to the proper catalog.

I agree, though, that a simple one-step writing of the number would be best!

[Wrangellian]

I did the same search and the most likely thing I came up with was this:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/UNI-BALL-PAINT-MARKER-PEN-EXTRA-FINE-PX-203-/300616624950?pt=UK_BOI_Office_Office_Supplies_Stationery_ET&var=&hash=item8bb4513466

It does say 0.8mm line, which sounds ideal, but I see some of the similar pens use an oil-based paint(?), and I'm not sure if that would be good on a fossil. Not sure if this one also is oil or what it is.

I dont think the color scheme would work on my lot - I prefer to keep them grouped by location, and I dont even know what some of them are! But interesting idea, if one could find multi colors of pen that are archival grade. Anyway if a fossil is too small for a number, I just put it in a little box with a label containing at least the cat.#.

[snakebite6769]

Regarding the “white pens”, I have actually used a silver sharpie as they are readily available at almost any stores now, then use my pigma .005 black pen over it. Occasionally I still use the white out method though. 

Edited February 20, 2022 by snakebite6769
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[aplomado]

For each site I go to, I have labels printed up with most of the info already (age, formation, location).  I just have to fill in a few things (ID, finder etc) and slip it in the bag with the specimen.  Hobby lobby and walmart have various sizes of small plastic bags good for specimens.