South Dakoda Matrix --Inital Microscope Scanning

[jgcox]

I received my matrix from Trevor(tj102569) opened it up and separated it into lumps, rocks and dirt. As the weather here in Cincinnati has been sub freezing my

small heater will not keep the garage warm enough to work in so I brought my scope into my office and have been doing a routine scan of the dirt and have found lots of teeth, vertebrae, bone and lots of look likes. My microscope camera crashed and my new one will be here next Monday and I will have some micro pics then. I took the attached photo this morning showing some of the macro teeth. The one on the 2nd row right is actually a tooth in a piece of jaw bone.

[tj102569]

im glad you enjoyed the stuff

[jgcox]

Wow got finished doing a visual scan of the loose matrix and I found several microscopic pieces of gold, some shock quartz and hundreds of microscopic iron sphericals. the shock quartz with the presence of the spheres could indicate a meteorite strike in the past. Kinda cool to see what you normally see only in text books or on TV. Tons of sharks teeth I have the large clumps soaking and have just received a gallon of Glacial Acetic Acid to make a stronger soaking solution. Lots of bone and other things in those clumps. Any suggestion on how to prep the large rocks??

[tj102569]

how did your large chunks come out?

[jgcox]

I am still working the largest pieces. Most of the smaller pieces have yielded tons of small to medium sized teeth with one tooth nearly an inch long.

I am using glacial acetic acid diluted to about 30% to breakup the clumps. I am also finding fish vertebrae, misc. bone pieces, lots of wood, and what appears to be small coprolites. I will be posting pictures soon.

[MarcoSr]

Is the 30% damaging any of the teeth? 5% or 10% won't damage the teeth if you have a good amount of matrix in with them but even these low concentrations can discolor or start to etch the enamel of some teeth if you just put teeth alone in the acetic acid

Marco Sr.

[jgcox]

Haven't seen any damage so far but with the increased acid concentration I am checking every couple of days. I drain the acid into another container through a sieve look through the dissolved material then transfer clumps that have not totally disassociated back into the acid. I found one large tooth and one broken tooth that does not look like a fish tooth. I am going to post pics this evening. Still finding small pieces of gold which is cool.

[MarcoSr]

Probably the acid is being diluted pretty quickly by working on the matrix so it is not bothering the teeth. It is good that you are removing the dissolved residue on a regular basis. At some point your acid will need need be replenished as it will be used up. Be much more watchful of the teeth in your residue if you add fresh acid. The lesser amount of matrix and stronger acid could lead to tooth damage.

Marco Sr.