There may be snow on the ground, but my mind closely orbits the shining star of the 2021 fossil season to be. At this point, I have plotted out several of this year's routes that will pass through many, many locations, with a goal of trying to top 2020's spectacular season. As I look longingly at the calendar, or check the long-range forecast for any hint of a possible early spring, fossil-related activities continue (albeit of the indoor variety). First up would be a long delayed and necessary reorganization of the entire collection, in addition to a deep clean / reorg of the prep area. And this would not have happened without my wife, Deb. I am sure I would just live in a cluttered squalor without her, not being able to find key fossils without much difficulty. It was her intervention that got me organized, and that she and her son put up an enclosure around my prep area to cut down on dust. For those who have collected, and stayed, with me at chez nous, one could not have a much more understanding and perfect spouse. When we are away for a week, coming back all furry and smelly, subsisting on a road cuisine diet, Deb gives us a perfect meal and beer. I am the luckiest ever! Anyhow, let's get to Deb's inspired reorg... This was an eight hour task, necessitating going through each of the fossil flats and various containers where I dumped six years of collecting. Much of it was mixed up, so I had to sort by location and formation. I transferred everything into beer flats and labeled them. A few hundred pounds of junk were pitched away. All of that had to go somewhere, as opposed to being in near-toppling stacks in the living room and all over the basement. So, this wire shelf unit that can take up to 2,000 lbs. About 33 flats all organized. Phase two was a thorough cleanup of the prep area. This also involved cleaning out 3-4 inches of dust from the blast box. I've even MacGuyvered an old tool belt attachment to hold my scribes (tips rest on an old work glove). There are four flats of fossils that are my prep queue. The bonus of going through all of this, apart from finally being more organized, is I kept bumping into fossils I had forgotten about, some of which I had tried to prep with primitive tools and abandoned. Phase three was the addition of a thick plastic enclosure to keep the dust at bay, secured with tuck tape and with one slit to allow me entry. It's very ET/quarantine of me. Not pretty, but functional. Taking the prep area out for an initial try-out, while doing some prep on Neuville Fm material, I happened to uncover this neat little number. It is a plate from a rhombiferan, likely Cheirocystites anatiformis. I'm doubtful there is more, but I can poke around and find out later. This was on a small slab with a partially enrolled Ceraurus pleurexanthemus. This was a welcome surprise. I had found this Bellacartwrightia at Penn Dixie in October 2018. The photo on the left was its field state. I tried prepping it (with hand tools, no less -- argh!) and it seemed to me to be headless, so I dumped it in waste box of misfit fossils. My organizational frenzy rediscovered it, and I decided to do a bit more investigation under the scope. Lo and behold, it is near complete. The cephalon is tucked over on the other side. These tend to more commonly appear like flat sandwiches. But this will be a neat project of a rare trilobite (the occurrence is something like 1 of these for every 10,000 Eldredgeops rana found). I will need to abrade the left side and then work on the cephalon on the reverse side. It will take a bit of stabilization first. Sadly, it is missing some of its right pleural tips, but those may be easy to restore.
A notice in the mail says I have a package waiting for me at the post office, and it is likely my six Russian bugs to prepare. I picked the right time to organize and clean! Comments are closed.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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