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So if you ever go to Morocco and have any interest in fossils you have to go to the Museum on the southern end of Erfoud and visit their Prep Lab. The quality of work coming from this small museum is some of the best in the world.Addendum: Note these comments from reader BJN:
Pictured here (in order of appearance):
1. Very large Crinoid plate, these are generally preped with an acid splash and then cleaned up a bi afterwards as seen here.
2. A smaller plaque but just as noteworthy; this is a new species of Crinoid and is being preped by having a black filler spread over the specimento make it stand out from the matrix a bit more and when it dries they remove the excess. This is to ensure the fossil doesnt fall apart.
3. A large trilobite plaque featuring several species of animals. First you notice the huge ammounts of Selenopeltis bucci, secondly there are two species of starfish pictures, and finally there are various other species of trilobites present-Asaphus, Onnia, and Bomstrella.
That's not a prep lab, that's a production floor for industrial fossil processing. The use of "bondo" is not really legitimate fossil prepping. It makes marginal, scrappy material look better on display in someone's office or home. The worst of what you get out of Morocco is "bondo bugs", typically trilobites that are mostly colored polymer clay cast onto a substrate of rock. There may be some actual fossil, or sometimes nothing at all. The rock is worked with air scribes to make it look like the specimen was prepared by hand. If bondo bugs are sold as reproductions, that's fine, but many dealers sell them as the real thing and much higher prices.
That's not a prep lab, that's a production floor for industrial fossil processing. The use of "bondo" is not really legitimate fossil prepping. It makes marginal, scrappy material look better on display in someone's office or home. The worst of what you get out of Morocco is "bondo bugs", typically trilobites that are mostly colored polymer clay cast onto a substrate of rock. There may be some actual fossil, or sometimes nothing at all. The rock is worked with air scribes to make it look like the specimen was prepared by hand. If bondo bugs are sold as reproductions, that's fine, but many dealers sell them as the real thing and much higher prices.
ReplyDeleteThank you BJN; I've added your insight to the post.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll look forward to your comments later this week when I post some questions about the validity of a floating crinoid fossil I recently purchased.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay on this subject (connecting it to a historical incident of fossil fakery):
ReplyDeletehttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_n3_v107/ai_20485364/
A very interesting essay; I'll use part of it for a future post later this month. Thanks, Emily.
ReplyDelete