Preserving Fossils (has a 150kb pic)

[doc_simon]

Possibly not the right forum, but what the hell - you guys are the dead things in rocks experts.

So, I have some dead things in rocks that I picked up on a little fossil hunting trip:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/muppetboy/fossil1.jpg

They are all leaves, seeds and twigs preserved in some sort of clay. Apparently they are about 10 to 15 million years old and from an old fossil bed.

Problem is the clay is drying and cracking, and I'm worried my fossils will crumble to nothing. Is there anything I can do to preserve them? I was wondering if I could coat them in PVA glue or something?

P.S. On this little fossil hunt I met me a real live creationist spouting Hovind. The guy who owns the fossil bed humoured her for a while. I was tempted to go and educate her using my pick-axe. But I resisted.

Anyway, cheers for any help on the save the fossil front. Mods, move this to the most appropriate place. If you guys are interested, I'll post more pictures of the things I've found - some of them are really nice.

[Richard Forrest]

Problem is the clay is drying and cracking, and I'm worried my fossils will crumble to nothing. Is there anything I can do to preserve them? I was wondering if I could coat them in PVA glue or something?


Step one is to get the fossils into a sealed, air-tight container and store it somewhere at an even temperature. Keeping the environment as stable as possible is very important, so don't put it on a window sill in direct sunlight! Standard practice in museum collections is to try to do the absolute minimum of treatment to any fossils.

Coating with glue won't help much: you'll probably find that the clay moves relative to the glue and pulls the surface off; PVA is also permeable, so it won't even help to keep the environment stable. I'd suggest that you contact a local museum where they have a collection of such material and ask them what they do. There are so many variables that a technique which works on material from one location destroys material from another.

I've use very dilute Paraloid (nearest equivalent in US is 'Butvar') in acetone to stabilise some fragile fossils, but it doesn't work all that well on some clays.

Richard Forrest

[doc_simon]

Hello.

Step one is to get the fossils into a sealed, air-tight container and store it somewhere at an even temperature.

Sounds like a good idea. I'll cling film them for now - as I have no big plastic boxes.

I'd suggest that you contact a local museum where they have a collection of such material and ask them what they do.


I'll have a poke around the university see if there's anyone here with a clue. Not sure there is a natural history museum near me.

cheers for the advice - hopefully i can stop them getting any worse before I get specific advice.