The Shadow Fish (Pricacara)

Now an then we make a nice spilt that reveals the shadow of the fish we need to recover. I have attempted to photo the shadow image of this Priscacara. I used pencil to show the approximate size and outline of the body. At this angle you may notice the vertebrae, head region and dorsal fin.Using a different view (vertical view) and  exposure adjustment one can better see the fish outline .Now we can carefully remove the matrix covering the skeletal remains of the 50,0000 year old fossil fish.

Winter Fun

We spent two night and three days playing in the snow in the high Uintas Mountains.

Skied about 7 miles back into a Yurt, spent two nights and three days. Skied around, ate well and enjoyed friends company.

There were four in the party and Hanna the husky. We used our back packs and a couple of sleds designed to tow our cargo.

Pam and Windsor were awesome hosts!

The yert would accommodate about 10 people, had a wood burning stove, propane lantern, however snow melting for dish washing was a chore.

Going in was work, but worth every hill, coming out was a breeze.

2010 finishup from 2009

After vacationing it takes me a couple of days to get my feet on the ground the refrigerator filled, the bills paid and catching up on communications.

Nice Priscacara @6 inches

9 inch Mioplosus and 2 Knightia

Now it is time to fall into a rhythm of work where I can produce quantity and quality restored fossil fish. Here are three plates that need to be dipped into sealant for their final finish making them the first projects completed for 2010.

Diver Mioplosus

My next adventure for fossil fish preparation is a 12 1/2 inch Mioplosus, the plate is 17 inches long and 8 1/2 inches wide. The matrix is 1 inch thick. This is an interesting project because the fossil fish settled into the sediments at an angle. The head is nearly 1/2 inch above the tail end. When the fish is prepared it will appear the head has more dimension the rest of the body.

The plate required some paleobond adhesive for a small crack on the plate, which was sealed from the back side. I had to fill and elmer's glue a few smaller cracks. The head and tail were preped by hand. We had to do some restoration to the body as some of the scales peeled.

This finished out a nice deep bodied sample of this predatory species

What's for Dinner

I decided to do a change of pace today.Thought I would fix dinner first before I prepared fossil fish.
Using about a pound of ground elk, onion, parsley, season pepper,chopped celery,sliced black olives, a quarter cup of barley for filler, 2/3 of a container of ricotta cheese and fresh spinach, a couple of hands full.
Cooked the burger, added other ingredients, mixed together, then I stuffed the ingredients into the large pasta snail shells, chopped up zucchini squash, layered squash with the filled shells, covered with mozzarella cheese.
Will bake on 325 for 30 minutes and dinner is severed.

19 inches of the Predatory Phareodus

As this project reaches completion I am humbled by my inability to restore things the way they should be. It seems as I set out to match paint colors or blend colors I get into trouble, then try to camouflage my goofs.
The learning curve continues to grow with each project,this keeps life interesting and me humble.

Final Project 2009 Phareodus

I finally got this beast put back together and patched things up as best I could. It will be interesting to see what it looks like when the paint restoration and final seal is done. I hope I can match colors well enough to make it look appealing. Plate will be16 X 22 1/2 inches, fish size is @19 inches.
It's hard to imagine fish of this size and bigger swimming around looking for other fish to eat.

As this fish came out in three major pieces it required a backing board, filling all the cracks and paint restoration. It was to large and rare not to restore.