Cooking Fossils - "bone-Appetit"

[cowsharks]

In my last few hunts I found a few nice verts, a nice section of Dugong rib bone, and even a decent 3" Meg. The larger dolphin? vertebra and the smaller atlas(?) vertebra had some dirt wedged in various nooks and crannies, so I washed them real well and scrubbed them with a toothbrush. I was eager to have them dry out completely so I could put them away, so I had a bright idea - stick them in the oven. So, last night after using our oven to heat up the last of our Thanksgiving dinner left overs, I snuck these two verts in the oven to expedite the drying out process. Well, a couple hours later, my wife yelled at me for putting nasty fossils in her oven, so I had to come running to retrieve them before she got too upset. So, I ran over to the stove, opened the door, and bent over to reach in and grab the two verts. As I did that, my pair of reading glasses that I had in my shirt pocket fell out, hit the oven door and bounced straight into the oven, all the way to the back of the oven, face down on both lenses! As I yelled something I prolly can write here, I grabbed the oven mits, retrieved the verts, tossed them on the counter, yanked out both oven racks, then reached in for my glasses...all the while (a good 20 seconds) the lenses laying face down on the 400 degree bottom of the oven. I grabbed the glasses, ran them under cold water, dried the lenses, tried them on, and was amazed - the polycarbonate lenses did not melt - thank God! I just got these glasses a month ago for $100.

Anyhow, back to the fossils....

I'm not 100% sure whether the small atlas vertebra is from a dolphin or seal. I have that one soft-back book that has line drawings of seal and dolphin skeletons, but can't find it right now. I have a handful of these verts, but none this small - perhaps it is from a juvenile.

The section of Dugong rib bone was a nice treat to find. I have a handful of these as well, and they are so neat because of the dense core. Looking at the pics I took you can see the "marble-like" dense inner core of the bone. There even seems to be a grain-like pattern (sort of like grain in wood) which I'm guessing is probably the result of the different minerals absorbed during the fossilization process.

vr,

Daryl.

[BobWill]

Nice bones. And the tooth looks complete. Did you find these near home? Glad to see you had your priorities right and retrieved the fossils from the oven 1st!

[cowsharks]

Nice bones. And the tooth looks complete. Did you find these near home? Glad to see you had your priorities right and retrieved the fossils from the oven 1st!

Yep, all of these came from Calvert Cliffs. And, I'm wearing that exact pair of reading glasses right now as I type this! Still can't believe they didn't melt.

Daryl.

[zachj]

nice meg man!

[MakoMeCrazy]

nice story and even nicer finds!

[Cris]

Very interesting. I have heard of a few members using their microwaves on vertebrate fossils to make sure they are completely dry...some of them have been using that method for years (you have to be sure they're dry before you preserve them with butvar)...but I have also heard horror stories from heating up any kind of fossil...if there's a lot of moisture trapped deep inside the specimen, I have heard that heating up the water inside can cause the piece to explode the same way oyster shells do when you throw them on a fire.