I was tinkering around this rainy autumn morning at the prep bench. After finding and preparing that lovely pair of Greenops I found at Arkona (report here), I figured there wasn't much else to do with it. Aesthetically, it would have been nice if I could safely trim the rock down as the pair are clustered at one end of a larger slab. So, I figured I'd play around with exploring the rest of the rock, seeing if there was anything else on the bedding plane. While I was doing that, the rock broke at the far end. Fortunately, the pair of trilobites were unaffected as the split happened at the opposite end of the rock. But it was then that I spied the impression of a third Greenops! The first task was to glue the rock back as it had split across the contact point between the cephalon and the thorax. You can barely see the crack now, and it seems well stabilized. Once the glue dried, it was time to uncover a bit more. The pygidial spines were uncovered, and they seem to be in good shape. A close-up. There is some significant damage on this one. I've flipped the image to show the trilobite right side up. The right side is missing a piece of its cephalon, the eye, and the genal spine. Also, there are two missing segments on the right side of the thorax. The left is also in rough shape. I'm not sure if the genal spine is intact, and it is missing portions of at least five ribs on its thorax. So what is next? I'm going to have to learn how to do restoration, using grafting of pieces from some of my spare partials that I've collected in the past. For that I am going to need a good mix of glue, magnification, and patience. I'll update this post when I can get around to performing this surgical task! UPDATE: As I was poking around a bit more, a nautiloid joined the party. It came flaking off, so I had to glue him back down. I also had some time to prepare an Eldredgeops rana roller I found at Penn Dixie earlier this month. Once I pried it out of the matrix, here it is in all its dusty, caked glory. This won't be simply a good scrubbing, but will take a mix of needles, air abrasion, and a special solution for softening the tough and stubborn matrix.
So I used the Paasche air eraser at 20-30 PSI, using 40 micron dolomite, for about 30 minutes. That, and other finishing touches, this one is nearly flawless. Have a look at the detailed pictures below: Comments are closed.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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