Crinoid calyx cleaning

[Jackson g]

Well I have been off of work this past week, and I start back this following Monday. With some of my extra time I've had, I've started work on prepping/ repairing some of my bulk Burlington crinoids that have just been sitting around. All of these calyxs are in different stages of completion, due to me always hoping from one to the other.

 

Starting with one of my favorite species, Azygocrinus rotundus. This piece is mostly completed, I just need to finish working the matrix to however I'd like it.

 

Next we have a mostly complete Uperocrinus pyriformis. When working this out of the tall wall of limestone it came out clean, but in two pieces.

 

Repaired

 

I then flipped it and prepped from the other side. I estimated I'm 70% finished with this one, as I'll do minimal work to the the matrix itself. Will look great when done and sit upright like the second picture below shows. I'll update the thread when finished.

 

Second Uperocrinus 

 

Next is Macrocrinus verneuilianus. Found this one earlier on this week when I went to do recon in a pretty random abandoned field. I'm taking my time with this one, and have only put about 35 minutes of scribe work in so far. Believe it or not I wasn't even sure if this was a calyx when I brought it home, as the calyx had one arm hole exposed from the limestone with the rest buried when found.

 

Here is another that needs repair before any prep. On the journey home, this piece fell apart in my backpack. A total shame as there is a Teleiocrinus umbrosus (only my 2nd ever found) with a Macrocrinus verneuilianus right below it. The piece fell apart clean and will hopefully look good one day. This will be a nightmare (see crack running through middle of calyx?) to finish.

 

And I know this isn't a crinoid but I found it earlier this week along with the Macrocrinus shown earlier when I was scouting a new overgrown field, and felt it was worth sharing too. In the chert layer I ended up finding and working out a really nice terebratulid brach with its inner support loop. Took 4 precise splits, all at different angles to reveal all its inner glory. Nerve racking to say the least. It's hard to see the features of the loop due to the heavy coat of druzy.

 

Heres a very useful reference and pic for those of you who don't understand what it is you are looking at. It's pretty rare the innards preserved within the brachiopod in this "geodic" way.

http://palaeos.com/metazoa/brachiopoda/brachiopoda.html

 

 

Update to first macrocrinus