Jump to content

Successful Experiment


caldigger

Recommended Posts

We have read many posts of members wanting to know the age of a bone found in a river because it looks really old, only to be shot down with the news that it is a modern bone. So I decided to conduct an experiment to see just how long it would take for a bone to take on an aged look enough to look like fossil bone.

This past winter, we had some tremendous storms that our shores haven't experienced in a long time which deposited many things upon the beach including a bloated beached whale and many dead cattle along with their bones. As I was walking the beach I came across several cow bones and gathered a few. 

I took a nice white vertebra and wanted to do the experiment on it.  All it took was a small plastic tub filled with water and a handful of dead leaves.

The vert was placed in the tub, along with the leaves and water. It was then sealed with the lid, left sit for a month and shabam! An instant fossil.

So the purpose of these little test was to prove that it doesn't take very long for tannic acid to do its thing and change the look of modern bone.

Hope you enjoyed this project, I did.  The last picture has another leg bone showing what the vertebra looked like originally.

IMG_0219.JPG

IMG_0220.JPG

IMG_0223.JPG

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm  curious if it changed the weight at all?

"Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another."
-Romans 14:19

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pretty uncanny. I'm interested to hear about the weight as well. Or maybe the hot needle of lick test.

Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I'm not going to attempt to lick it or burn it...we already know it isn't old. I don't believe the weight really changed at all.

The whole purpose behind the project was to prove it takes no time at all for nature to give the appearance of age. So the other tests should be utilized to prove actual aging rather than taking physical appearance as an indicator.

Olaf, if you like, you are welcome to lick it to your hearts content. I saw the rotted carcases from which they came. Yuck!

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for that useful experiment. It looks like it belongs in a museum display. I never would have guessed the animal died just this past winter. Interesting.

Start the day with a smile and get it over with.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for sharing... learn something new everyday. Now all I have to do is find my first bone......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I did another batch with the leg bone (bovine) from the comparison picture above and two jaws, a deer and most probably a squirrel.  I forgot to snap a picture of them before shipping out. Now just awaiting Blake @FossilDudeCO to post a picture. I left them in the "solution" ( water and dried leaves) for five weeks this time. The leg bone, given its thickness, took a bit longer to soak up the color.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 23.8.2017 at 1:10 AM, caldigger said:

 

So the other tests should be utilized to prove actual aging rather than taking physical appearance as an indicator.

 

Me being not a bone man, it sure would interest me to see a list of these tests.

 

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On bones for which I can't readily ascertain age, I'll first tap on it with a rock and listen to the sound signature.  High pitched and glassy implies mineralization, while a dull thud often implies recent.  Next comes destructive testing.  I'll sometimes snap a little piece off of a worn area.  If it bends before breaking, it still has collagen remaining and is therefore recent.  If brittle fracture results, I reason that collagen has leached out, and I also gain a peek at cross sectional wall thickness, and can glean additional info such as how deep surface stain has penetrated.  All these factors together give me a better feel for age.  I tend not to do the burn test personally, as all burning bones stink to me, and my stink-o-meter must be out of calibration.

Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing that I've found is that sometimes even clearly identifiable extinct fossil bones (mammoth or mastodon) have little or no mineralization.  I've found elephant vertebrae that are as little mineralized as the cow that died in last years flood.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Huh, that's really interesting! Makes me want to test if all my Ice Age bones really are fossils :headscratch:

Max Derème

 

"I feel an echo of the lightning each time I find a fossil. [...] That is why I am a hunter: to feel that bolt of lightning every day."

   - Mary Anning >< Remarkable Creatures, Tracy Chevalier

 

Instagram: @world_of_fossils

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really wish Blake @FossilDudeCO 

would come back to the forum. I sent him three really nice "experimental" pieces, but forgot to photograph them before they were sent. He left the forum right after he received them, so maybe someday he will get a shot of them and post for us to see.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting experiment Doren. Bone is calcium carbonate and being soaked in tannic acid has made calcium tannate rather than stained the bone tho I guess there maybe some staining too. Next time you do it weigh the bone pre and post tannin. I suspect the amount of tannic acid you made was very small and probably only reacted with just the surface so any weight change on regular scales might not be noticeable. I’ve got some lab scales that are accurate to 0.0001g. If I get time I’ll give it a go with tannic acid powder, make a saturated solution and put a snake bone in and see the result. My problem is I’m moving studio next week so am pretty busy but I’ll see what I can do. Oak leaves and oak falls are good. You can get tannic acid commercially, I buy mine from the USA as I use it in photography. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting John, i live in El Paso de Robles ( Spanish for "Pass of the Oaks" ), so what type of trees do you suppose I have an abundance of around me to gather leaves from. You'd think I would use those.

However, the leaves I mostly used in the experiments were from a different tree growing on the hillside next to my place. Skinny wrinkly leaves and a few Sycamores thrown in for good measure.

Really, this exercise was not meant as a scientific analysis, it was just to show even modern bone can take on the "aged" appearance of a fossil. So we can't just judge that book by the cover.

I for one, ( no matter how sure I am) wont be licking any bones as a proving ground.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Well it looks like we may have lost FossilDudeCO for whatever reason, so I will post the brother to the leg bone I sent him. I think the one I sent looked better, but here ya go.

Modern cow leg bone that was soaked in a tannic acid bath (dried leaves and water) for 5 weeks.

Looks like it came straight off of the sifter screen. I only wish you could have seen the jaws, they were spectacular.

 

20171227_163657.jpg

20171227_163616.jpg

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...