Ludwigia Posted April 21, 2017 Share Posted April 21, 2017 I was out at my favorite spot in the Wutach Valley again on Tuesday and dug up a large one this time. It was in a huge block buried under a foot of dirt, leaves and rubble and first I thought that I'd struck bedrock, but that unfortunately didn't turn out to be the case. The area I'm exploring is an old landslide in the woods on the side of a small mountain and although I've found at least one spot where I can start following the bedrock layers up and down, I'm discovering more and more that the whole slope is just full of landslips and floes at various levels, so it's hardly possible to get your bearings in the horizontal and you just have to rely on luck and your nose. Anyway, I was quite struck with the size of this thing although I couldn't make out much due to the surrounding matrix, so I trimmed it down to a size that would fit into my knapsack and trudged back to the car with it. I spent a good 10 hours working on it over the last few days. Here are a few before pics. Front & back and you can just make out part of the keel in the last one. So I got down to trimming at first with the air pen. It went fairly well, since there was a good parting layer between matrix and fossil. The innermost whorls were unfortunately not there and I inadvertently punched a hole in it with the stylus. I fixed that up later with some stone meal. I placed a ruler in the first photo to show its size. I left a thin layer of matrix over the fossil, so as not to scratch it with the stylus. You can now see where part of the keel is broken off at the bottom in the first picture. I could have done some reparation there later with apoxy putty, but I'd already decided at this point to leave it as is, since it provides an interesting glimpse into the mineralized septa. The next few hours were spent mostly abrading with the odd swing back to the air pens to trim off some more excess matrix where it was possible. That was necessary to save some time, since a lot of the remaining matrix turned out to be quite hard and although I was working with 90psi it was still pretty slow going. Oops. Just run out of MBs. Have to move on to the next post..... Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted April 22, 2017 Author Share Posted April 22, 2017 And here's the finished product after coating it with a beeswax finish. A view into the septa with calcite crystals is in the last photo. The interesting thing about this fella is that, although it has a diameter of 30cm., it is only the phragmocone. Half a whorl is missing at the top on the outside from left to right. Just for fun I used my paint program to sketch it up to its projected full size. Not very artistic, but it suits the purpose. The arrow indicates the end of the phragmocone and beginning of the living chamber. This ammonite could have had a diameter in life of up to half a meter. Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innocentx Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 Impressive! Looks very fine. "Journey through a universe ablaze with changes" Phil Ochs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ptychodus04 Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 Roger, this guy would have been a monster! Well done on the prep. Regards, Kris Global Paleo Services, LLC https://globalpaleoservices.com http://instagram.com/globalpaleoservices http://instagram.com/kris.howe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 Nice find. Luving the geode part. Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys." Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough." My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection My favorite thread on TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJB Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 Well Roger, after reading all that and seeing what youve done, Id have to say you are a man of patience and a man of talent! Very nice job and good call on not repairing that part of the keel. RB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted April 22, 2017 Author Share Posted April 22, 2017 19 hours ago, Innocentx said: Impressive! Looks very fine. 6 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said: Roger, this guy would have been a monster! Well done on the prep. 5 hours ago, ynot said: Nice find. Luving the geode part. Thanks, Guys 5 hours ago, RJB said: Well Roger, after reading all that and seeing what youve done, Id have to say you are a man of patience and a man of talent! Very nice job and good call on not repairing that part of the keel. RB Makes it all that more interesting, doesn't it? Thanks for the compliments, Ron Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnBrewer Posted April 23, 2017 Share Posted April 23, 2017 Hey Roger, how you saw the ammonite in the first place baffles me! Superb work with the air pen as always however a little more practice maybe needed with ink pen John Map of UK fossil sites Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJB Posted April 24, 2017 Share Posted April 24, 2017 however a little more practice maybe needed with ink pen That johnBrewer bloke is one funny guy. RB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted May 3, 2017 Author Share Posted May 3, 2017 On 23.4.2017 at 11:42 PM, JohnBrewer said: Hey Roger, how you saw the ammonite in the first place baffles me! Superb work with the air pen as always however a little more practice maybe needed with ink pen On 24.4.2017 at 5:48 PM, RJB said: however a little more practice maybe needed with ink pen That johnBrewer bloke is one funny guy. RB I'm taking a sketching course right now, so there's still room for improvement Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnBrewer Posted May 4, 2017 Share Posted May 4, 2017 Yeah. I'm rubbish with an ink pen and my prepping pen is worse! John Map of UK fossil sites Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.