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Showing results for tags 'Grafton'.
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From the album: My trilobites
A Calymene celebra from Grafton IL (Silurian) -
Last summer my father spotted a slab of Calymene celebra from Grafton, IL Milwaukee, WI in a small shop in a small town in Northern Minnesota. A while later I went to the shop and took a look at it. After a bit of discussion we purchased the slab with the intention to prep it a little better. In the store, the slab had 11 trilobites exposed. There looked to be quite a bit of matrix that could be chiseled down and there was a possibility of exposing more trilobites. My father started chiseling away excess matrix in search for more bugs, and more bugs were found. The total as of right now is 17 complete Calymene celebra. The Niagara Dolomite is extremely hard and a hammer and chisel proved to be a daunting task, so we enlisted the help of an air chisel. Once a trilobite is exposed/discovered, we then use and air scribe to get close to the trilobite. Now comes the question of how we should finish the slab once we are done looking for more bugs? Should we leave it the natural grey color of the matrix? Or, should we grind the matrix so it looks whiter and creates more contrast between the matrix and the bugs? I really wish I would have taken a before photo...