Now that my replacement stylus has arrived, it's back to the lab. I've got a bit of a backlog of pieces to prep, so I could have worse problems! I prepare my fair share of these bugs, but this one will present some opportunities to try out some new preparation approaches. This is how I found it in its field fresh state at Penn Dixie. I bucketed it on account of seeing the full roller. Another WIP is photobombing this one at the top, but after some exploratory scribing, I encountered two more rollers. Sadly, my scribe blasted off a piece of the middle one, but I can do some restoration with Milliput once I'm done. My goal here is not to be as trilobitocentric, but to prep the brachiopod at the top, and the rugose coral below to make it an association piece emblematic of PD fauna. Who needs acres of bulk matrix? My ME-9100 sails through the stuff. The leftmost bug is pretty much fine as it stands without more bulk matrix removal, so it just needs a good blasting. I'll work to expose the middle bug's cephalon, but have to be careful not to overexpose its pygidium and thorax given its close proximity to the brach and the other bug. Still, I can do some very precise work with the Aro to create a kind of "channel" between them. The rightmost bug has its cephalon matrix-down, so I'll prep this one with its back showing. Just to give a sense of the levels I'm working, this perspective shows it is not just like a flat slab. I've been carefully exposing more of the bugs as well as the coral and brach. Once that is done, matrix prep, blasting, and final touches. I'll update this as I go. Stay tuned...
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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