I'm going to be sawing a 98 million year old fossil in half this week. Sigh. I mean, I'm very excited to see what results I'll get from laser ablation analysis (specifically LA-ICP-MS) of fossil bone and sediment... but in order to do that, I have to partially destroy a fossil.
It's ironic that this fossil has survived for so long, has withstood all the taphonomic pressures placed upon it, has resisted modern weathering, was collected from the field and carefully transported back to the lab, only to be cut in two! But I know that I can gain a wealth of information about the rare earth element signatures of bone and the surrounding cement that will indicate the depositional environment and timing of concretion formation. So it's definitely worth it, just a little heart-breaking.
It's ironic that this fossil has survived for so long, has withstood all the taphonomic pressures placed upon it, has resisted modern weathering, was collected from the field and carefully transported back to the lab, only to be cut in two! But I know that I can gain a wealth of information about the rare earth element signatures of bone and the surrounding cement that will indicate the depositional environment and timing of concretion formation. So it's definitely worth it, just a little heart-breaking.
