Home Fossils Preparation of fossils





Preparation of Fossils

At home you then start cleaning and preparation of the fossils. When the fossil is in rock, you can try to use a small chisel or screwdriver for preparation. You can use a paintbrush to clean the fossil during and after preparation. When the fossil breaks apart, you can use glue.

Fossils in limestone can be cleaned with acid. The chalk chemically reacts with the acid. Be careful with the acid, because your fossil can also be damaged!

Most fossils do not require special treatment before storing. Apart from cleaning them of course. There are some exceptions:

  • Fossils from salt water or from the beach.
    These fossils should be put repeatedly in new clean water to extract the salt from the fossil. Do this for a few weeks until the salt is gone. When you do not get rid of the salt your fossil will eventually fall apart.

  • Fossils containing pyrite / sulfur.
    Pyrite is mostly gold colored. Some fossils contain pyrite. This mineral reacts with oxygen from the air and after some time your fossil is reduced to dust.
     You have to seal your fossil from the air. You can do this by putting your fossils in molten paraffin (candle wax). Leave them in there for about 10 minutes and let them cool down.

Most other fossils do not require special treatment.




Example of pyrite

Below you can see a sea urchin from the Algarve, Portugal before and after preparation. The preparation took about 25 hours.


Before: This was how the sea urchin was looking before preparation. The fossil was still coated with chalk en the fossil was full of fractures.


After: The sea urchin first was carefully taken apart. The seven pieces were brushed clean and after that glued together again. After a few days, the remains of the sediment were carefully removed with a pincer and a small screwdriver.

 


The following information about fossils is available:

 

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