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Is it worth buying Pyritized fossils for display?


aplomado

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Is it worth buying Pyritized fossils (ammonites, etc) for display?

 

I have read many times about them being damaged by "pyrite disease."


I am not interested in buying one of these fossils if I have to keep it sealed away.

 

Thank you.

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Pyrite Disease is sometimes, but not always, a fatal one for an openly displayed pyritized fossil.
I have some that were fine, but had turned to powder when next I opened the box. On the other hand, I have a large pyritized brachiopod (bought from Malick's Fossils 50+ years ago) that is fine. My impression is that the most unstable ones are the Jurassic ones from the UK, but that is hear-say info.

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I lost nearly all my UK Lias ammonites and much of my Sheppey stuff to pyrites disease. 

But as Auspex says it seems to be pretty random. 

A couple of my oldest ones are still with me. 

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There have been extensive discussions about Pyrite Disease here on the Forum.  ;) 

 

Here is a particularly ambitious experiment in preventing the onset of Pyrite Disease.

    Tim    VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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Are you in an area that experiences a lot of humidity or moisture in general, ie. the beach?  If so you may be a tad bit more susceptible to it.

I live in California. We refer to our environment as a "dry heat", lol.

 

 

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On February 28, 2018 at 3:32 PM, Auspex said:

Pyrite Disease is sometimes, but not always, a fatal one for an openly displayed pyritized fossil.
I have some that were fine, but had turned to powder when next I opened the box. On the other hand, I have a large pyritized brachiopod (bought from Malick's Fossils 50+ years ago) that is fine. My impression is that the most unstable ones are the Jurassic ones from the UK, but that is hear-say info.

 

Hi Chas.

 

I had a small sample of various ammonites from the Jurassic Lons-le-Saulnier site in France.  They were nice pyrtized specimens at first but within a few years every one of them became reduced to powder.  I have a few from about the same part of the Jurassic from Germany that are still fine.  I have a couple of pyrite-coated Ptychodus teeth (Turonian age) from South Dakota and they're fine.

 

Jess

 

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On 2/28/2018 at 7:19 PM, caldigger said:

Are you in an area that experiences a lot of humidity or moisture in general, ie. the beach?  If so you may be a tad bit more susceptible to it.

I live in California. We refer to our environment as a "dry heat", lol.

We are pretty humid down here in the summer...

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