Sunday 11 September 2016

The Very Old

We went to Charmouth on Thursday, had a great day out.  We did a bit of fossil hunting on the beach and found this 200 million year old pyritised Echioceras ammonite on the beach (I am not being clever here, I got this information on the internet)  This find was a surprise because Charmouth beach is regularly combed by fossil hunters.


4 comments:

Richard Pegler said...

Hi Lin. That's a great find! How big was it?

Did you know that these pyritised fossils totally disintegrate over time in even a slightly damp atmosphere. There is a way to safeguard them. There is a plastic, specially used for conservation, called Paraloid B72. You dissolve it in acetone, then leave the item to soak in it for a while, then take it out to dry - hey-presto, you have a fossil, or whatever, with a microscopically thin plastic coating to conserve it - could be used on all manner of things, but I've only used it for Charmouth pyritised fossils (I've got just over 20 of them, and they still look good! I got my Paraloid B72 from:

Addlington Studio
The Old Bakery
Marshwood
nr Bridport
Dorset DT6 5QF

I guess this is not a million miles from you! Alternatively you could send me an SAE and I'd mail you enough B72 to do that one fossil.

BTW - make sure you thoroughly clean the fossil first to remove any trace of salt.

If you want any more information, e-mail me (address on my blog - under 'copyright' in the RH column)

Best wishes - - - Richard

Linda Yarrow said...

Thankyou Richard for the information, I did not realise they disintegrate, I will look into getting some Paraloid B72 to conserve it.

Richard Pegler said...

Just checked my Charmouth pyritised fossils - I'd obviously managed not to treat one from a couple of years ago, and the remains were already sitting in a pile of dust! Those from a couple of years before that are as bright and shiny as ever!

holdingmoments said...

What a great find Linda.