Ensiferites brandenburgi sponge

[DPS Ammonite]

I found another Ensiferites brandenburgi sponge that is now currently the largest ever found at 7 cm x 7.5 cm across. Part of the top displays lots of 1 mm spicules. 
 

Unfortunately the top of the calcareous sponge is mostly covered with caliche and possibly the limestone matrix. Is there any hope to prep this to expose all the spicules on the top? How? This could become a near museum piece thus I don’t want to practice my prepping skills in it. Help @Ptychodus04.

Edited January 27, 2021 by DPS Ammonite

[Neanderthal Shaman]

Very cool, looks like a bunch of little asterisks 

[Kato]

Wow! So...we have Devonian Percha here....does yours have black nonfossiliferous shale and fossiliferous gray, green shales with nodules? Between you and FossilDAWG, I may need to stop my fern searching in the Pennsylvanian and start exploring the Devonian Percha and Sly Gap again

 

Are the lower dark cliffs Silurian?

[DPS Ammonite]

31 minutes ago, Kato said:

Wow! So...we have Devonian Percha here....is your shale black? Between you and FossilDAWG, I may need to stop my fern searching in the Pennsylvanian and start exploring the Devonian Percha and Sly Gap again

 

Are the lower dark cliffs Silurian?

The shale is yellowish, greenish and reddish, anything but black. The sponges occur in the upper limey layers. 
 

Have you ever seen sponges from the Percha in NM?

 

Take this map with a big grain of salt. The area marked Dm is actually Percha. An unknown amount of Devonian Martin Fm is below the Percha. My friend mapped 50 ft in this area. The cliffs are partly Devonian Martin Fm., Cambrian Abrigo Fm., Precambrian Troy Fm. and Precambrian Dripping Spring Quartzite.

 

Map:

https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_1977.htm

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by DPS Ammonite

[Kato]

2 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

The shale is yellowish, greenish and reddish, anything but black. The sponges occur in the upper limey layers. 
 

Have you ever seen sponges from the Percha in NM?

 

Take this map with a big grain of salt. The area marked Dm is actually Percha. An unknown amount of Devonian Martin Fm is below the Percha. My friend mapped 50 ft in this area. The cliffs are partly Devonian Martin Fm., Cambrian Abrigo Fm., Precambrian Troy Fm. and Precambrian Dripping Spring Quartzite.

 

Map:

https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_1977.htm

 

Interestingly different from here. We seem to share only the Percha. Ours goes Onate, Sly Gap then Percha. Lots of unconformity depending where you look. Percha and or Sly Gap could be on Onate or Onate can be missing with Sly or Percha on the top of the Silurian.

 

Research papers are split as to the certainty of the Percha here having equivalency 

 

Sly Gap is usually black with pyrite concretions. I look upward from there. Percha here can be dark gray in one section then grading to the colors you mentioned. Have not really seen many fossils as exposures are poor. Sort of remember rumors of conondont bits, brachiopods and corals in the best exposure. Have not dedicated time to this site yet.

[Ptychodus04]

That does not look like a fun prep. The only hope for a decent prep to preserve those delicate structures would be an acid prep, but if they are calcareous, that's out. Are you sure they aren't preserved with some other mineral? I would do a test on a small section of exposed fossil to see if it reacts to vinegar.

[DPS Ammonite]

49 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

That does not look like a fun prep. The only hope for a decent prep to preserve those delicate structures would be an acid prep, but if they are calcareous, that's out. Are you sure they aren't preserved with some other mineral? I would do a test on a small section of exposed fossil to see if it reacts to vinegar.

Sadly the sponge itself fizzes in acid. I am wondering how nature could prep those spicules so nicely. Do you think that sodium hydroxide flakes would selectively take off the matrix and caliche?

[Ptychodus04]

9 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Sadly the sponge itself fizzes in acid. I am wondering how nature could prep those spicules so nicely. Do you think that sodium hydroxide flakes would selectively take off the matrix and caliche?

Slow application of abrasives and water are nature's prep tools. If you could run a stream of water with sugar sand suspended in it over the specimen for 20 years, you would get amazing results!

 

I would do a test with the sodium hydroxide. If there's any clay in the matrix at all, it will break it apart.

[fifbrindacier]

On 27/01/2021 at 1:00 AM, DPS Ammonite said:

I found another Ensiferites brandenburgi sponge that is now currently the largest ever found at 7 cm x 7.5 cm across. Part of the top displays lots of 1 mm spicules. 
 

Unfortunately the top of the calcareous sponge is mostly covered with caliche and possibly the limestone matrix. Is there any hope to prep this to expose all the spicules on the top? How? This could become a near museum piece thus I don’t want to practice my prepping skills in it. Help @Ptychodus04.

Those microscleres are incredibly well preserved !

Here is a link to an article i found about that sponge :https://www.jstor.org/stable/1303886?read-now=1&seq=4#page_scan_tab_contents ; J. Keith Rigby Deitmar Schumacher and Sally J. Meader, Journal of paleontology, v. 53, NO. 2, P. 475-493, PLS., 2 text-figs., March 1979. The photos below are also from that article.