Uso de técnicas analíticas para establecer protocolos de preparación paleontológica en las VII Jornadas de Salas de los Infantes

Y como no solo del estudio de los fósiles vive la paleontología, en las VII Jornadas Internacionales sobre Paleontología de Dinosaurios y su Entorno celebradas en Salas de los Infantes (España) también se presentó usen trabajo acerca de la optimización de las labores de preparación de los propios fósiles. La comunicación, encabezada por Fátima Marcos, empleó metodologías alternativas, como la Tomografía Axial Computerizada (TAC), como herramienta para poder examinar y planificar la metodología idónea a seguir incluso antes de desembalar el bloque a preparar. 

El resumen de la comunicación es el siguiente: 

Since 2007, the various research projects developed on the biota of the site since its discovery indicate that in the Konzentrat‐Lagerstätten of Lo Hueco (Upper Cretaceous, Fuentes, Cuenca) are composed by a complex set of fossils representing a wide diversity of Late Cretaceous tetrapods, such as turtles, crocodilyforms and dinosaurs like ornithopods, basal neotheropods and dromaeosaurid, and sauropod titanosaurs (Ortega et al., 2015).
From the first moments of the field work, it was obvious the fragility of the vertebrate fossils surrounded and filled for a complicated matrix containing clays, gypsum and iron. This matrix made the fossils extremely sensitive to humidity changes, which can completely destroy some specimens (Collins et al., 1995). Many of fossils are affected by the growth of gypsum crystals, sometimes deforming or even destroying some of its parts. Also, a large number of the fossils are totally or partially covered by a layer of insoluble iron that, in many cases, prevents the access of the consolidation treatments and the direct visual inspection of fossils (Marcos‐Fernández & Ortega, 2016).
A first analysis of the conservational state of the paleontological collection was carried out with the aim of identifying deterioration agents that need to be controlled to reduce risks and to ensure the continued integrity of fossils over time (Waller, 2003). [...]
Using these analytical techniques has helped us to better understand the fossils, their risk agents, including minimization of these by small changes in the application of some preparation techniques.

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Más información:

• Referencia: Marcos-Fernández, F., Serrano-Martínez, A., Ortega, F. 2016. Analytical techniques for marking protocols in paleontological preparation. In: Torcida Fernández-Baldor, F., Canudo, J.I., Huerta, P., Pereda, X. (eds.) Abstracts book of the VII International Symposium about Dinosaurs Palaeontology and their Environment, 89-91.