Lesson of the Week: Wrap 'Em!
Lesson for the week: If you are working on unstable ground, always wrap your finds, no matter how durable they seem.
I went with the DVPS, Delaware Valley Paleontological Society this weekend to explore the shales of New York State. Most of this was done atop mounds of loose shale. I found a bucket load of brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods, ammonites, and trilo-bits. The fragile ones I wrapped in aluminum foil which is easy to wrap and keep wrapped, stiff enough to really create some padding, and reusable at least a couple times. We can add to that list of benefits now, "easy to spot in the field." My luck, I was 20 or 30 feet up on the hill. My bucket was below me. The wrong rock slipped as I took a step, knocking over the bucket. The bucket tipped, flipped, and tumbled all the way down the hill, leaving a trail of my goodies behind it. I could see in the faces of my compatriots that they were all dying a little inside at the sight of it. The foil ones were easy to spot, but the unwrapped ones took me about 20 minutes to recover. The next day, EVERYTHING got wrapped, just in case.
I went with the DVPS, Delaware Valley Paleontological Society this weekend to explore the shales of New York State. Most of this was done atop mounds of loose shale. I found a bucket load of brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods, ammonites, and trilo-bits. The fragile ones I wrapped in aluminum foil which is easy to wrap and keep wrapped, stiff enough to really create some padding, and reusable at least a couple times. We can add to that list of benefits now, "easy to spot in the field." My luck, I was 20 or 30 feet up on the hill. My bucket was below me. The wrong rock slipped as I took a step, knocking over the bucket. The bucket tipped, flipped, and tumbled all the way down the hill, leaving a trail of my goodies behind it. I could see in the faces of my compatriots that they were all dying a little inside at the sight of it. The foil ones were easy to spot, but the unwrapped ones took me about 20 minutes to recover. The next day, EVERYTHING got wrapped, just in case.
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