Shark Tooth Hill Preservation

[firemanjosh_c]

Hey all,

I went to Shark Tooth Hill in Bakersfield recently and found a bunch of amazing fossil bones and teeth. Some are in matrix, some are not. My question is, given how fragile they are, what is going to be the best method of stabilization. I have B-72 (Butvar) but I wanted to check with thefossilforum's huge knowledge base before I try it. Any advice is great appreciated. Thanks,

Josh

[ynot]

This is a thread that shows how I did a tooth in matrix piece from there.

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/65102-a-simple-prep/

Tony

PS Any pictures of Your finds?

Edited June 4, 2016 by ynot

[Raggedy Man]

This is a thread that shows how I did a tooth in matrix piece from there.

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/65102-a-simple-prep/

Tony

PS Any pictures of Your finds?

Definitely in good hands firemanjosh. I consider ynot King of STH.☺

[ynot]

Definitely in good hands firemanjosh. I consider ynot King of STH.☺

Thanks, but a am. at best. a 2000th prince in line for the thrown, and a relative newbie to that site.

Tony

[PaleoRon]

I made a trip out there earlier this year and the majority of the fossils that I found were very stable and needed no consolidant.

[firemanjosh_c]

I have a bunch of smaller one inch pieces in matrix as well, but this is the main one. Sadly, one of the 2 inches fell out of the matrix during the trip back to Florida. All the bubble wrap in the world can't protect some fossils from the airlines. Thanks for the advice, I'll start working on it tomorrow. I am planning on keeping the divot below the tooth. Shows how close my tool came to plowing right through it.

Edited June 5, 2016 by firemanjosh_c

[ynot]

I have a bunch of smaller one inch pieces in matrix as well, but this is the main one. Sadly, one of the 2 inches fell out of the matrix during the trip back to Florida. All the bubble wrap in the world can't protect some fossils from the airlines. Thanks for the advice, I'll start working on it tomorrow. I am planning on keeping the divot below the tooth. Shows how close my tool came to plowing right through it.

Nice matrix piece and tooth too. Make sure to secure it before exposing to much so it stays on the matrix.

Good luck!

Tony

[siteseer]

PaleoRon,

I have teeth I collected over twenty years ago and some of my other teeth were collected in the early 60's. They all seem okay but it wouldn't hurt to given them a coating of Butvar solution, especially on the roots.

Many sites for the bonebed have well-minerallzed teeth. In other parts the roots of the teeth are rather fragile and tend to be white to pale yellow as if the color and mineralization had been washed out of them somehow. In my experience you tend to find more well-mineralized teeth at the west quarry (Bob Ernst used to call it "the west side") and Slow Curve.

Jess

I made a trip out there earlier this year and the majority of the fossils that I found were very stable and needed no consolidant.

[digit]

As has been stated above--it seems that the more porous roots are the most fragile parts of the tooth. Some of the matrix from the Slow Curve area tends to be like a grainy sandstone and will tend to leave bits behind unless stabilized. Like Tony, I have stabilized smaller pieces of matrix with the simple application of some CA glue (covering the root also but not the tooth blade). I would suspect Butvar or any other handy consolidant would work well to stabilize the matrix and root.

When traveling on airplanes with fossil specimens (just got home from a trip to Chicago with 85 pounds of Ordovician fossils and hash plates from southern Indiana) I always carry the best and/or most fragile pieces in my carry-on luggage. Those that I think can handle the rigors of checked bags I wrap well and then pad with clothes tightly in my suitcase. I use the internal straps to cinch down the fossils and clothes so they don't shift around inside the suitcase. BTW: A digital luggage scale (easily acquired online) will be money well spent to top out your suitcase at 50.00 pounds. My suitcases weighed in at 50.0 and 49.5 pounds earlier this week. I also prefer to fly Southwest when I can as each passenger gets 2 free bags (like in the old days before the airlines discovered that they could use checked bags as a new profit center). In addition to the two luggage bags packed to (weight) capacity with various hash plate slabs I had a backpack for more loose specimens that I figured wouldn't survive grinding together in the baggage handling process. When passing a backpack full of rock through the X-ray machine at the airport security I usually answer the confused look on the X-ray operator's face by letting them know it is filled with fossils. I was only asked what kind of rock they were in and "limestone" seemed to be the right answer that passed the backpack out of the X-ray machine (without even a hand inspection).

If you've worked hard, traveled and sweated to obtain your fossil finds, don't let the airlines turn them to dust--always hand-carry them.

Now lets see some photos of your other finds.

Cheers.

-Ken

[TNCollector]

Truth is, even for fossils that don't need preservation, adding it generally will not cause any harm to it. Most preservation compounds used in paleontology labs are soluble in acetone solution, so removing it safely is usually not a problem.

That being said, I almost never add consolidate to a fossil if it appears to be stable, simply because the compound can be expensive and sometimes take a long time to dry.

For teeth in a loose matrix - where you want to keep the tooth in the matrix - a consolidant is a good way to keep the item stable.

Best of luck!

Jim