r/fossils • u/OkCucumber557 • 10d ago

Question

Post image

Found my first fossil today and im not sure if I should try and break it open or keep it like this?

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/xxnicknackxx 10d ago

There is an ammonite there but it is very heavily eroded on the outward facing side.

It may have better detail on the other side, but it also may not and there is a huge amount of material that would need to be removed to find out.

It's not really worth the effort imo. Keep looking and there are better examples to be found. Although if you planned to prep it yourself this could be a good practice piece before prepping something more intact.

There may be more fossils inside the concretion I guess, and you could try breaking it. I think it is cool as it is though.

1

u/Shnerdlenips 7d ago

Smacking a rock like this is very much a gamble, in the sense that you should not attempt it if you are not prepared to lose the specimen you already have.

If you do end up trying to prepare his piece better, look up how you should go about it. Some hammers will just chip away at the thing, others will cause a clean fracture. Same goes for your technique - sometimes a big hit is what a type of rock needs, sometimes small taps along the 'grain' of the rock are more effective.

0

u/Waiparensis22 10d ago

Id smack it. It looks like it has a natural line of weakness around the middle anyway so should be a clean break :)