That title would make a great first line for a second chapter of a novel. I am currently covered in dolomite dust, looking more like a very busy baker. As I was teaching every morning the past week, and the weather has not been the greatest (it is actually snowing at the moment), much of my fossil time is spent indoors tackling my "Terries" -- the bunch of Terataspis grandis parts I found the week before. There are many challenges. One of my scribe styli snapped, leaving me with only the powerful ME-9100, which is not great for fine detail. The trilobites are in a matrix that has crusty, frosty calcite and dense chert. Never very lovely. I am still stuck using a Paasche for abrasion, which is a bit like trying to score holes in iron with a drinking straw. But persist I must! Much of my focus of late has been one of the promising glabellas. So far, it has been a bit over 6 hours of very slow progress, partially due to equipment follies, but also due to a morphological problem. You see, the glabella of a Terataspis is almost completely round, and so working from the top down means not knowing which way it is facing, which means not knowing if it continue (and in what direction). The last thing I want to do is just scribe freely and accidentally blast off a lobe This was the first crack at it a few days ago. It's on a big bloody rock that is challenging to move around in my blast box. I can't risk cutting it down until I've determined the direction of the glabella in the event it continues. Here is the fruit of three hours' labour + a few beers last night. Some closeups with the Olympus as well again to show microsculpture. And this is where I am now after three hours this morning. I had a bit of a breakaway moment as I was getting bolder with the clunkier scribe. I still have a long way to go, but I'll update this as I progress... Another two hours has revealed a connecting part, which helps a bit in terms of orientation: And this is where things stand at the moment (Sunday, May 10). I am now certain of its orientation. Compares well to the cranidium pictured in Ludvigsen.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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