Vordigern Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 well I have been hitting a local stream twice a week for about 5 weeks now and had planned for my first post to be my finds but Im concerned that this fossil wont survive very long. Over the weeks Ive found a bunch of carbonized wood, no bigger than 1/2" X 2", and as the pieces dried out they expanded, became brittle,fell apart and grew duller in color. The magnified pic is of an one of those samples and you can see a whitish coloring that appears to be crystalline and Im guessing its salt. I saved a couple scraps to mark off my fauna list and went on hunting. Then yesterday I saw very nice chunk of bark much larger and more detailed than anything Id seen before and when I turned it over to examine the back I discovered the back had pyrite "growing" all over it. I would like to prevent this piece from suffering the same fate as the other pieces but besides keeping it wet I have no idea what else to do. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vordigern Posted August 18, 2011 Author Share Posted August 18, 2011 sorry for the duplicate pic, not sure what I did there, anyway the magnified pic is an older deteriorating sample and the other 2 pics are the new pyritized piece Id like to preserve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lordpiney Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 (edited) judging by where your hunting, i can assume that wood is probably cretaceous in which case it's probably lignite. i would soak that thing in a 50/50 mix of water and elmers. let it dry, and it should be ok. Edited August 18, 2011 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vordigern Posted August 18, 2011 Author Share Posted August 18, 2011 thanks lordpiney, I'll give that a try. Now the only other thing I have to worry about is pyrite disease. You are correct, it is Cretaceous and I have a feeling youve done some hunting in that stream yourself, ever find any pyritzed fossils and if so have you ever had any problems with pyrite disease? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Google marine archaeology conservation sites; there are procedures for dealing with old, salt water soaked wood. (tracer has posted some wonderful stuff about this, but I can't find it right now). "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pleecan Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 You might want to investigate soaking the wood in (PEG ) poly ethlyene glycol to replace water and stop the cracking... see article http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/research/highlights_archive/maryrose.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 nautarch the above link has some good info. if you are relatively new to fossil hunting, i would suggest that you keep ranging farther to different locations and see what all you can find. some places seem to only have fragile fossils, and some other places seem to have very stable fossils. dealing with very fragile stuff can be expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating, so if you can locate material that starts out being fairly stable, it's a big plus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texas-Tunnel Rat Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 judging by where your hunting, i can assume that wood is probably cretaceous in which case it's probably lignite. i would soak that thing in a 50/50 mix of water and elmers. let it dry, and it should be ok. I 2nd Lord Piney's idea. I do that with my charcoalled specimens of Wood and plants from both Carboniferious and Mesozoic. PUBLICATIONS Dallas Paleontology Society Occasional Papers Vol. 9 2011 "Pennsylvanian Stratigraphy and Paleoecology of Outcrops in Jacksboro, Texas" Author Texas Paleontology Society Feb, 2011 "Index Fossils and You" A primer on how to utilize fossils to assist in relative age dating strata" Author Quotes "Beer, Bacon, and Bivalves!" "Say NO to illegal fossil buying / selling" "They belong in a museum." Education Associates of Science - 2011 Bachelors of Science (Geology & Biology) - 2012 est. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Pristis Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Read this before you do anything with the wood. http://nautarch.tamu.edu/crl/conservationmanual/ http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? ---Shakespeare, The Tempest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vordigern Posted August 19, 2011 Author Share Posted August 19, 2011 nautarch the above link has some good info. if you are relatively new to fossil hunting, i would suggest that you keep ranging farther to different locations and see what all you can find. some places seem to only have fragile fossils, and some other places seem to have very stable fossils. dealing with very fragile stuff can be expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating, so if you can locate material that starts out being fairly stable, it's a big plus. Ive been hunting for about 12 years but until recently only got to hunt about 3 times a year because I thought the closest sites were at least 2 hours away (Big Brook, Carbondale, Calvert Cliffs...), I just found out about the local site that I have been hunting for the past month+ and am sure there are more, I just have to keep researching/searching to see if I can find them. This site is mostly shark teeth though I have found a couple small bone fragments, a ray dental plate, a gator scute, a gator tooth, a piece of turtle shell and some gastropod and brachiapod molds. The lignite is just little pieces scattered in there and the pyritized fossils I just stumbled on when I went to a deeper part of the stream just to see if anything was there and started blindly sifting because after the first screen full the silt renders visibility impossible. I heard about a Park in Mantua but when I took my kids there I must have been in the wrong spot cause I found nothing but modern shell material. Thanks to everyone for the help, I favorited that nautarch site, looks like a lot of great conservation info! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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