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Preparing acanthodian fossils from the Tillywhandland quarry.


James_R_V

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Did some fossil hunting at the tillywhandland quarry near Forfar during the weekend and found of partially exposed acanthodian fossils. I just wandering if anyone could give me some advice on how to expose the fossils without damaging them. Someone mention that I could use acid to expose them, but I  have been reading that potassium hydroxide could do just as well. The fossil are in clastic carbonate laminates. 

20190415_215556.jpg

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This looks like air abrasion with baking soda might do the trick. 

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My experience with these types of fossils is that air abrasion of any kind hurts more than it helps. If I was to attempt to expose any more of this fish I would do so with a super sharp xacto chisel blade under a scope removing the the fine grained matrix in the thinnest of micro layers until the fish was just starting to be exposed. I would then use a very sharp sewing needle in a pin vice to flake of the bits of matrix at the edges where the super thin remaining matrix and exposed fish meet. This is a very slow process but can give quite good results. Very old school...

 

I would not use a scribe of any type on it. This is very similar to what I would do when exposing a eurypterid in a super fine grained matrix.

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