Late Lab Updates

The Christmas Rush is no joke, and we have all been running a little haggard this month it seems! Here is a quick catch up from last week to today!

Jodie-  4:20 pm 12.08.16 Post Prep

Jodie- 12.08.16  4:20 pm Post Prep

Jodie managed to get in to the lab last week, I was sadly called off for a family emergency. So you might note her time stamps  above show the correct Paleo Lab Thursday date. Our new powerful scribes have been a massive blessing and are letting us get some amazing detail work done. Jodie worked on the ends and they cleaned up VERY nicely. Her pictures do not do her workmanship justice. This bone she is working on is pristine. 

Sara- 12.13.16 12:17 pm Pre-prep 

Sara- 12.13.16 3:27 pm Post Prep

Sara- 12.13.16  3:27 pm Post Prep

I had an odd shift today and I managed to slide in to catch up on my own detail work. I started by going back over the entire exposed surface and removing any remaining matrix. I ran into an issue with the hairline fractures in the bottom center of my images, so I slathered on the vinac and waited 20 minutes, working around the issue till I felt that it had dried sufficiently. I removed the offending matrix with little problem and by the end of my hours I had cleaned the majority of the central surface area. This Thursday I intend to work on the horribly crushed end caps. 

PVA (Polyvinyl Acetate, commonly known as Vinac™ *) is a great high quality preservative coating that can be used in all stages of fossil collecting and preparation. We use high-purity, Polyvinyl Acetate Beads (PVA)  as a penetrant and coating for fossils in both the field and in the laboratory. We dissolve these odorless, tasteless, nontoxic beads in acetone (approximately one pint of PVA beads per gallon) to make a thick concentrate. This is later thinned with additional acetone for different viscosities for various uses. Thicker solution will work best to slow the weathering if a specimen must be secured for later excavation and extraction. Thinner solution will leave a light protective coating on the surface of prepared fossils. (reference: http://www.bhigr.com/)

I hope you are enjoying our updates! See you Thursday!