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Like the title states, let's see your results with acid prepping! I have found not as much info on this style of prepping, so please feel free to give some details as to how it was done, i.e. time, technique, soak sessions, etc. Have a great day everyone~

Hello, forgive me if this question has already been answered. I found dozens of crinoids this last fall. They look great when wet, but when they dry they're dull and dirty looking. I've tried soaking them in soapy water and scrubbing with a toothbrush, but nothing spruces them up. I've also tried using vinegar given that the limestone doesn't fizzle, but it destroys the crinoid. Is there anything I can do to brighten or clean these things? The last two pictures are the crinoids when wet and the first is dry. Thanks for the help.

Hi all. I looked through a few pages of this forum, but couldn't find an answer to this question. I hope I'm not duplicating something asked and answered elsewhere. My family came across this mortality plate in Carfordsville, IL earlier this summer. We've already cleaned it off with water and a toothbrush, but I reached out to a geology expert at my state's museum to ask her what else we could do. She told me: "[T]he fossil is sitting in a rock that will dissolve in acid. If you want, you can try letting it soak for a bit in some dilute vinegar and water for a few hours at a time and then brushing at it as you have if you want to try to clear a little more of the rock away. The fossil itself is harder but is also made of a material that will dissolve, so that's why I recommend doing that slowly if you choose to go that route." She mentioned elsewhere in the email how understaffed and over worked the museum employees are right now, so I don't want to bother her anymore. I wonder if anyone on here knows 1) what ratio I should use in preparing a vinegar and water solution, and 2) how long I should soak it for and/or how long might be too long? Any advice would be sincerely appreciated!

Hi, all. My family and I only got into fossil hunting in July, but we already have made a few trips to collect them since them. Most of what we've found are small impressions in larger rocks. It's nothing that would likely impress anyone here, but we like them. We would like to clean them, and I have seen a few YouTube videos showing how to use vinegar to remove dirt and some of the surrounding surrounding rock. If I put a fossilized impression in vinegar for a few hours, would it destroy it? If so, what would be the best way to clean/prepare them?

Good morning all!- hope you are all healthy! I found these foraminifera (my first!!!) on April 20, but took my time fishing them out of some limestone, then meticulously cleaning and prepping them. Thanks to Clear Lake for suggesting, in my first post that it looks similar to Ozawainella ciscoensis-really appreciate it! They were all found in winterset limestone in Kansas City. Researching numerous references, I found it is far more complicated identifying them, so I'll send them to someone with more expertise in i.d.s! , and am leaving them as simply Foraminifera. I i.d. them under a dissecting scope, then used 30 gauge needles to loosen them with applications of vinegar, then washed them in alternating vinegar and water, then placed them on blue clay to make them stick in place. The best one has 4 views. Just received my digital microscope and love it!! So simple and easy to use! My previous post stated it measured 458um or so, but I used the wrong objective- all of these are 860-900um in diameter. I went ahead and placed them on the fossil of the month, only because I haven't seen a lot of images on them in the forum (though I'm still looking through ).Thoughts and suggestions appreciated, and thanks for making me feel like a kid again! Hope you enjoy!- The beauty of some things simply cannot be appreciated unless you look closely!!!! Bone

Central PA, Mifflintown-Bloomsburg (undividied) Block collected from roadsite float. Its pretty variable, with a flaky/fissile layers alternating with slightly more cohesive ones. Lots of broken brachiopod bits. For an experiment to I dropped an unremarkable flake the size of a large coin in some vinegar and let it soak for a day. The flake had a couple brachiopod bits and I wanted to see if they would fall free or dissolve in place. The brachiopds disappeared and I was left with this (see pics). Of course I got really excited and thought I had an early fish spine, but now I think I dissolved a crinoid stem and what we see is the matrix that filled in the soft bits. What do you think? Total length is 3/4"

I have some Limestones full of fossil including fish teeth. Traveling all over our small home town to find the strongest "vinegar" I could, and first I saw a gallon at the supermarket was 5%. Pickling vinegar at Walmart - 5%. Cleaning vinegar at Home depot - 6%. They advertise on their web site 30% called "Ultra Vinegar" but no one in the store has a clue. Ive heard that 10% is what is used on the Gogo stuff. Please give me your thoughts, thanks!

A week ago, on Thursday, I set some chunks of limestone in a vinegar bath to extract microfossils. Since my vinegar supply was low, I only filled the tubs halfway, and I left the lids off. My plan at the time was to return in a couple of days to filter the liquid, but life intervened, and by the time I could do something else with them, they were growing some rather pretty crystals! I decided to leave them alone and see what developed. Here's what they look like today: I think this one looks like caulifower: And this like a leafless forest: Unfortunately, the "cauliflower" fell off the rock after I took the picture, and some of the "trees" are falling down (which is why I decided to photo it today!), so it's probably time to decide whether to continue processing or try to preserve them as they are. I don't know whether these crystals will persist in the absence of a calcium carbonate-enriched solution or not. Just thought I'd share my unplanned chemistry experiment!

I'm try to break down some hard micro matrix from the ATCO formation in TX. Its a rock solid clay, almost sandstone. Now there are some very tiny micros in this stuff and i don't want to cause any abrasion to them by just throwing them in a hydrogen peroxide solution. Do you guys suggest Muratic acid? Vinegar and baking soda? Or Hydrogen Peroxide? And what are some ratios you tend to work with? And how long do you soak them? Any and all help is appreciated by this micro noob!