Mark Kmiecik Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 14 minutes ago, Nimravis said: I figured you meant it for others and it is good advice not to leave it for a long time, and now I am like you, I leave them alone unless I can clean it with water. I have a lot of pieces that are a real mess and I leave them that way, same holds true with some that could use some prep, I don’t do that either. My mentor and others that lived in Wilmington and Braidwood use to put egg whites on all plant specimens to bring out detail. Note to self- Don’t lick old Mazon Creek flora pieces. Yep, I tried the egg white back in the day on a few specimens. They look good, but I don't care for the "shiny" look anymore, and it's very difficult not to create bubbles that dry as bubbles. Used yellow dextrin on a few also as a "preservative" and to improve contrast. Don't remember where I first found the info to do that on MC specimens, but I believe a portion of either FMNH or State of Illinois MNH had been coated with the dextrin. Both are soluble in water, so it's no big deal as far as removal goes. Experimented with various oils, but found that oils simply evaporate with time and the specimen reverts to its original state. Don't lick the fauna either. Yellow dextrin. 2 Mark. Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted May 22, 2019 Author Share Posted May 22, 2019 @stats Rich - per our discussion at Braceville regarding your Cyclus, here are a couple of my favorite ones. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deutscheben Posted May 23, 2019 Share Posted May 23, 2019 Those are some big honkin' Cyclus, Ralph! I love all the detail present in them as well. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stats Posted May 24, 2019 Share Posted May 24, 2019 On 5/21/2019 at 4:23 PM, Mark Kmiecik said: Comment intended for others who are following this thread. Don't want anyone to think "Ok, I'll just soak it in vinegar to clean it up." and have their fossil disappear. I did that once in '91 on what would have been a fairly nice 7" complete Pecopteris pinna and still remember that heart-sinking feeling vivdly. Put it in a vinegar bath in the evening and forgot about it. In the morning there was a long bump and a long trough where the pinna had been. Once you try it a few times on throw-away specimens you develop a sense of how long you can soak it to remove/loosen the calcite, but it takes many tries to get a feel for it. I don't try to improve specimens any more. I figure whoever has them after I kick off can ruin their own. I soak them in pure water for about 15 minutes and then into vinegar for between 5 and 10 minutes. Afterwards, I place them back in the pure water for a while. I initial water soak is to saturate the concretion and hopefully not leave room for the vinegar to soak into the concretion. Let it work only on the outside. The last bath is to dilute any vinegar and rinse it off. Cheers, Rich 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stats Posted May 24, 2019 Share Posted May 24, 2019 Very nice! Cyclus are one of my favorites! If you look close, you may be able to see the gill structures on their back. Here's my favorite. Cheers, Rich 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted May 24, 2019 Author Share Posted May 24, 2019 15 hours ago, stats said: Very nice! Cyclus are one of my favorites! If you look close, you may be able to see the gill structures on their back. Here's my favorite. Cheers, Rich Very nice Rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdp Posted May 24, 2019 Share Posted May 24, 2019 Just a quick note about cleanup of Mazon Creek fossils. If you suspect that a specimen is scientifically important and are open to donating the specimen for research (in particular, vertebrate fossils) please please don't scrub the specimen or paint on any sort of coating, egg whites or otherwise. One of the things scientists have been doing lately is element-mapping some of these fossils from Mazon, which allows us a better understanding of which specific tissue types might be preserved in a fossil. Too much cleanup, or any sort of coating, and we can't do that. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdp Posted May 25, 2019 Share Posted May 25, 2019 And speaking of Mazon vertebrates, there's a new one this week: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlz025/5497448?redirectedFrom=fulltext Cute little beast: 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted May 31, 2019 Author Share Posted May 31, 2019 Tonight I had about 1/2 hour to crack open some concretions tonight and here are the results: Coprolite- Coprolite and Bark- Multiple Myalinella meeki- Neuropteris- Possibly Cyclopteris- Annularia that did not open properly- Lycopod leaf section- A poorly preserved shrimp- 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted June 2, 2019 Author Share Posted June 2, 2019 This afternoon I spent some time cracking open a number of concretions, here are the few items that I found, nothing special but helps in the filling of buckets for the next Braceville Shaft Mine trip in September. I will start out with the nicest pieces- This is a very nice Essexella asherae Jellyfish- Annularia stellata- Alethopteris- Here are some of the other pieces. Bark / Subsurface Bark / Stems- Neuropteris- Pecopteris Partial Lepidostrobophyllum majus bract- Partial Alethopteris and Annularia. Myalinella meeki- Mazonomya mazonensis- 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miocene_Mason Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Amazing jelly!!!!! 1 “...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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidgy's Dad Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Yeah, the jellyfish is a superb example, beautiful. 1 Life's Good! Tortoise Friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Yeah, that one looks like a jellyfish more than most! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted June 3, 2019 Author Share Posted June 3, 2019 @WhodamanHD , @Tidgy's Dad and @Wrangellian here are a couple examples of nice Essexella asherae, they have always been one of my, if not my favorite Mazon Creek animal. The first picture below is my all time favorite, I found both halves on top of Tipple Hill, the next two are just other nice examples. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidgy's Dad Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Superb! Life's Good! Tortoise Friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monica Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Those jellyfish are indeed beautiful, Ralph! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miocene_Mason Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Beauties! It is a source of endless wonder for me that such delicate creatures could be preserved so finely. “...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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 I've always like the jellyfish fossils too, for the reason Mason just mentioned. Not every fossil deposit has those! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Those are nice jellies. 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...
Mark Kmiecik Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Those are XL jellies and well defined. Excellent! Mark. Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted June 4, 2019 Author Share Posted June 4, 2019 7 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said: Those are XL jellies and well defined. Excellent! LOL- these are big, but I have some XL ones, I i can find a couple I will post pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted June 4, 2019 Author Share Posted June 4, 2019 Here is the other half of my favorite Essexella asherae sitting on top of a big boy. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdp Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Another new Mazon tetrapod: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlz026/5511658 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted June 29, 2019 Author Share Posted June 29, 2019 I was getting my "Fossil Car" ready for a possible up coming collecting trip in a week and I found a couple concretions that I had left in there from my last time out at Pit 11 a couple 0f weeks ago. Rather than putting them in the basement with my other concretions that need to be opened, I decided to whack these and see what pops. All were duds with the exception of one that revealed an Essexella asherae Jellyfish that will go into the bucket for the September ESCONI trip to the Braceville Shaft mine. This one was already opened, but it is still a cute jellyfish. But since I had the hammer out, I decided to open some from a bucket that contained concretions collected in 1998 from the spot I call "Across From Pit 4". I think I may have posted this old aerial shot before, but if not here it is. The Green area is Pit 4 (Shadow Lakes) a place that I collected a lot. The Blue area is "Across From Pit 4", me and some friends started collecting there at the end of 1997 thru maybe 2001 as they were building homes. This was really a great place to collect as there were tons of concretions exposed. the workers could care less that we were there, you did not have to walk from from your car and it was an area where the Essex (Marine) and Braidwood (Fresh) environments came together. I would find things at this location that I would not find across the street at Pit 4. Here are some pictures of what the area looked like when I was collecting there, and yes, the concretions were everywhere. It was truly a great place to collect and you never left empty handed. Now on to some of my finds from today- Ctenodus cristatus (Lungfish Scale)- I have found several scales from this spot, but never at Pit 4. Macroneuropteris- Here is a shrimp, thinking this is a Acanthotelson stimpsoni. More On Next Post- 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted June 29, 2019 Author Share Posted June 29, 2019 Here are more examples of Neuropteris- Annularia- Pecopteris- Lepidostrobophyllum bract- I found a lot of Myalinella meeki, some are really nice. A nice Pecten, I am thinking Dunbarella striata. A possible worm- An of course a couple pieces of bark. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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