How do I split shale properly?

[Anchiornis]

Hello everyone,

I've had a lifelong passion for fossils but I'm a relative newbie to collecting, having only done it for the last 3 years. Most of my previous fossil-collecting trips were in NC, where you find sharks teeth and shells by sifting through creeks or looking through mine deposits. I know very little about how people do it out west, which has turned out to be a big problem.

On a recent vacation to Colorado, I looked around Florissant Fossil Beds and also ordered a shipment of fossils from the quarry. The shipments arrived about a week ago, and there's some pretty interesting imprints on the surface some of the rocks, namely possible Sequoia and Cedrelospermum, as well as another rounded leaf. I got an X-Acto 1 knife and started splitting yesterday. The problem is, even though I'm trying to follow the instructions of the sheet sent with the fossils, I haven't found many fossils, and worse yet I've accidentally lopped off the tops of the sequoia and Cedrelospermum leaves (it's nothing a little superglue can't fix, but still). The remaining parts of the leaves are also in a very precarious position: they are on very thin layers and I can't continue splitting the shale without possibly causing damage to them. I'll share pictures later.

People who've successfully found fossils at Florissant, what are your secrets to finding things and not causing damage to fossils that are in the same rock that you're splitting?

[Fossildude19]

One trick is to give a light tap to the knife, then move it further along the beginning crack.  continue this to the edge or the shale, then proceed in the same manner around the other edges of the shale.

Try a wider blade, as well. A very sharp, thin putty knife or palette knife can be helpful to use, depending on the matrix piece size. 

 

[Miocene_Mason]

There is also some amount of luck involved.

[minnbuckeye]

I found a razor blade worked best for me, and as fossildude 19 said, tap it lightly and reposition and tap again until it splits on the same plain.

 

 Mike