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A few of the pieces of fossil matrix I received from Bob O'Donnell required some cleanup. I tried scrubbing with a toothbrush and soap and water to no avail.  The only safe cleaning agent I had on hand was CLR (Calcium, Lime, Rust).
I know a lot of the matrix and fossils may consist of Calcium Carbonate and was ready for the reaction. I left the matrix in the CLR solution for about one minute then scrubbed them with soap and water.

Prior to the CLR bath the matrix was quite dirty, dark and dull. After the etching the matrix was quite clean, dark and dull until I put it under the microscope. The microscope revealed some sculpted areas and surprising colours.

The colours and shapes revealed in one matrix piece are the subject of this post.

The matrix piece is 55mm x 40mm x 30mm. I photographed only one corner  and that required four sections of  10 photos each stacked with Picolay. The four stacked sections were then stitched with Microsoft's ICE.

 

I know I should not have used CLR, but what is life without surprises.

Microscope: Zeiss Stemi 305, 2x photo eyepiece, .8x objective. Camera: Canon 1000D,

Composite of the four stacked sections.

ArkonaMatrix4-Z2x.8_4901_en_al1_Picolay4.thumb.jpg.8e22019a65ca1b78b829b1b20a1cc496.jpg

Top Left

ArkonaMatrix4-Z2x.8_4901_en_al1.thumb.jpg.cb5f863007b2a380a15af06924338e40.jpg

Top right

ArkonaMatrix4-Z2x.8_4934_en_al1.thumb.jpg.0ed293aab88ffcde93c3d80cb17dbddf.jpg

Bottom right

ArkonaMatrix4-Z2x.8_4926_en_al1.thumb.jpg.dfb975958e96eec8be5a299180bd4dfc.jpg

Bottom left

ArkonaMatrix4-Z2x.8_4914_en_al1.thumb.jpg.1310a374e4bba72baeb9290dcffc5f33.jpg

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In the words of the great Bob Ross, "There are no mistakes, just happy little accidents" and I would classify this as one of these, may not be the best for the fossils, but it sure looks cool.

“...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin

Happy hunting,

Mason

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very nice!

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"_ Carl Sagen

No trees were killed in this posting......however, many innocent electrons were diverted from where they originally intended to go.

" I think, therefore I collect fossils." _ Me

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."__S. Holmes

"can't we all just get along?" Jack Nicholson from Mars Attacks

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Those are awesome shots.  That focus stacking software really does the job, Ill have to look into that for our fossil shots.  Thanks for posting!

 

Arizona Chris

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Arizona Chris

Paleo Web Site:  http://schursastrophotography.com/fossiladventures.html

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The stacking software I use, Picolay, does a more than adequate job for the type of stacks I create. It has a very small footprint (less than 5MB),  aligns, balances, stacks, does other things I have no clue about, has not crashed since I started using it and is free.
It is being developed by a professor (Paleomicrobiology) at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment in Oldenburg, Germany.

 

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