I've not been out in the field much in the last bit, but that is something I will be rectifying shortly. I've actually been getting a head start on a big backlog of prep projects. I've put in about 120 hours of lab time, with about half of that involving specimens that I am not ready to show yet, but which may turn out to be very exciting. like, "knock your socks off" exciting. For now, more show and less tell! This common Flexicalymene senaria from the Neuville Fm of Quebec was lodged sideways into the bedding plane. This one took a bit more effort because, like most Neuville material, the first few millimetres are easy-breezy shale, and then you hit very hard limestone that even dolomite at higher pressures struggles with. There is still a bit of matrix stuck here and there, but there are also three major cracks running through the trilobite, so it is by the miracle of matrix that this holds together. It has a lot of compression damage on account of its orientation. Apart from the unfortunate ding on one of the axial rings due to exposure, this turned out okay. Much of this bug was set in a hard, calcitic crust where dolomite tends to polish rather than abrade. But I soldiered through it. The right eye is a bit busted, so I didn't continue abrading that any further. I spent some time organizing the chaos of many, many flats of rocks, and came upon various prep projects I either abandoned or forgot about for one reason or another. This Penn Dixie bug was consigned to "B-grade" status on account of its compression damage. I don't seem to have a "before" photo of this one, but I recall it was listing on its side. Notably, as I took this one up again, I removed every little grain of matrix from this one, apart from where it is crushed (right eye and anterior margin of the left cephalon). Sometimes you have to leave a bit of the crud on as that is the only thing keeping it from breaking apart! It certainly has character, and can sit in the display case as a partially pedestaled piece. And now on to a recent arrival in the Postal Formation... Not the very best of preps, but I got this for a sweet price. This is a Walliserops trifurcatus from the Devonian of Morocco. It differs from W. hammi in having a very long trident. It is one of the more enigmatic trilobites insofar as there is no clear consensus as to what purpose and function the long trident served. Competing theories suggest camouflage, sensory apparatus, competitive sexual selection (akin to stag beetles), or simply a means of levering off the sea bed. With no access to observational behaviour or DNA, we likely will never know. But we do know it must have served a key purpose as nature abides by the conservation of energy, and having to regrow this ornament in the course of 30 moultings would take a lot of energy for it to be simply decorative!
And that is all for now. I do have a Russian lichid on the way, and I'm occupied working on some exciting fragments (yes, fragments!) that I hope to show in the near future. The season is just about over, save for one last hurrah, but it has been my very best. Comments are closed.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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