I decided to have a go at a Blog.. .. 'all new to me'...but its time I got with the programme, as they say.... so its based on prepping one of my large ammonite finds... so some of the images I'm going to add initially , youve probably seen before in the other thread... but you have to start somewhere......my only motivation in doing this to share my finds and prepwork which I enjoy doing and in doing so, maybe you can enjoy them to and to help reinforce our common interest in sharing what we find and know.... This is an ammonite I found a couple of months ago, and I have been chomping at the bit to get started on it, as it looks slightly different to the run of the mill ammonites I have collected off this beach....maybe from a different layer.... I will have to try and get a positive ID at the end of the prep job...

It is a fossil I found in Lyme Regis, England on Monmouth beach.... and the rocks here are lower jurrasic aproximately 190 million years old in this section of the coast which were deposited in a marine environment and consist of alternating shales and limestones...

Blue Lias Cycles (click link) http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/jpg/1lic.jpg

Monmouth Beach

Alternating Shale & Limestone

Ammonite Block

Finding the ammonite was pretty straight forward, although they are getting quite scarce, this one was just poking out of a large slab that needed breaking down.... swinging a hammer is quite difficult and dangerous during the holiday season on a beach, and sometimes attracts quite a bit of attention, and whilst I was getting this out a little german girl was inquisitive, and fortunately a couple of bivalves popped cleanly out of the rock, which she took as her prize back to the hotel from the fossil beach, leaving me to contune getting the rock down so it could be moved...

Close up showing ammonite that has been partially worn by the sea... This will need some reconstruction at the end of the prep job....

The shell on this ammonite is only just over a couple of millimetre's thick... so you can see what i have to work with.... I cant dig into the rock, I can only skim rock off very close to the ammonite, and the rest i will remove using wet and dry sand paper as I go along....

Thickness of shell visible in rock

Initially I had to decide which side to prep it from, and usually on this material it is from the underneath.... which seems to be the side best protected, in the sediments, prior to fossilisation taking place... deciding which is the underneath in this instance isnt possible as I dont know the bed or layer it came from, so there are no obvious markers, trace fossils, etc, I can use to determine which is the top.... so its just a wild guess...after a few hours exploritory prepping I decided to stick with the side I decided, and below is an image of roughly 6 hours into the job.... Im digging the keel of the ammonite out as well, which probably adds at least a third more time to this side of the ammonite, but being from a different layer, im quite keen to do it some justice... sometimes I might just expose the keel on the uppermost side when its more of a run of the mill specimen...

Roughing out

Its not easy to determine the depth Im having to dig into in this instance from the photo, but the ammonite is on a slight angle leaning back, from the bottom.... having such a thin shell makes it quite difficult to go at the rock with any force so its mostly all air chisel and pen work.... ive used a stil saw to cut the base after playing around with the block looking for its best angle ... then marked the base and cut it...

12 hours in

A couple of ribs are visible on the second whorl, due to a piece of rock lifting, when I cut some of the 'bulk rock ' down with the stil saw....Its looking more calcified than the 'mud infil' body chamber of the ammonite, so its looking promising.... I might have to loose a couple of ribs off the end of the ammonite shell, as the keel has gone and a section of shell appears to be broken off... I will know this better when I get round the other side, and complete the first whorl...

Second Whorl Ribs uncovered

Jobs stopped, I have been neglecting to replace my airpen hose for quite a few years and have bodged it each time it leaked... it decided to blow ... so theres a new one in the post...

Bang

Back on track, a new hose appeared in the post for the airpen this morning, just intime as we are about to have a major postal strike... thanks for your kind comments Fig & John....Im glad to share my finds with you, otherwise they would just stay hidden from view.... I certainly appreciate seeing your work and collecting trip reports as to...I managed a couple of hours this afternoon, and its taking shape.. Im busy doing other stuff for a short while... so I will get back on to it soon and maybe I start to polish the outer whorl... Im undecided about leaving the rock on to the left of the ammonite.... I know you both have a good artistic eye....take a look and see what you think....