Exploding Fossil Shells, Mississippi

[Oxytropidoceras]

Dockery, D., 2015, Exploding Shells. Mississippi

Department of Environmental Quality Environmental

News. vol 12, no. 9, pp. 11-14. http://bit.ly/1Ly75vR

and http://www.deq.state.ms.us/MDEQ.nsf/pdf/Main_ExternalNewsletterNovember2015/$File/externalnov.pdf?OpenElement

Newsletter Archive - http://www.deq.state.ms.us/mdeq.nsf/page/Main_NewsletterArchive?OpenDocument

Yours,

Paul H.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Oxytropidoceras

[jkfoam]

The referenced publications give an excellent, if abreviated, explanation of the processes in "Pyrite disease". I have long been interested in pyrite disease because I have personnaly observed its destruction of my collection of pyritized ammonites I collected from the Lake Waco, TX, Del Rio formation site. The collection was reduced to an unidentifiable gray mass. The fossils sat in the gray alkaline clay periodically saturated with water (rain) for millions of years unchanged. But after I removed them from their clay bed they proceeded to react with moisture in the air and disentergrate. I can only assume that the alkalinity of their insitue matrix gave them protection from pyrite disease. It makes me think I should have added a bit of that matrix to the poly bags I stored my fossils in to protect them.

Paul, thanks for the references, great post.

Jim