Late devonian placoderm prep:

[Manticocerasman]

Natalie and I have been hunting the late devonian deposits for a while now. And from time to time we do find some small fragmentory placoderm remains.

But this time Natalie found something realy exquisite. A well preserved placoderm plate in the shales, after tring to get it out we found out ( the hard way by hitting an other bone fragmet during extraction) that there was a lot more in there than just that one armorplate.

So to be sure we had to somehow take back a stone slab from around 60cm long to avoid losing some parts.

 

It has been lying around at home for a while now in wait of some new prepping equipment ( micro sandblaster) and when we recently got the new tools I started the prep of the placoderm.

 

 It took a while to clear up as much as possible, with still a few fragments in the harder matrix that I didn't get completely free, but for now the piece is done.

Some of the parts that were uncoverd were: The median dorsal plate, pre-and postorbital, antherior supragnatal, Inferognatal and more...

the fish should be a type of Coccosteid placoderm. I've already contacted some paleontologists that I worked with before on devonian fish to see if we can get more info out of it.

 

So here is Natalie's placoderm:

 

as found:

 

during the prep:

 

 

and the end result:

 

 

 

[ziggycardon]

Gorgeous pieces!

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

That's awesome, Kevin! What a spectacular piece! And congratulations on another top notch find, Natalie!

Edited June 19, 2023 by pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon

[Fossildude19]

Amazing work and find, Kevin and Natalie!
Thanks for showing us.

Looking forward to hearing what the experts make of your latest find!

[Euhoplites]

Underrated find, saw it with my own eyes and it is amazing