Platystrophia ponderosa Brachiopod

Sand abrasion cleaning on Ordovician Period brachiopods. Recently, I have been preparing to send some fossils to a friend and decided to clean some of the Platystrophia ponderosa? ones. This is Kentucky's state fossil so it seemed appropriate. If the matrix is soft the cleaning process has great results.

These fossils were found at roadcuts east of Louisville, Kentucky.

Here are some pictures of some of the ones that showed marked improvement. One most of the matrix was off this first brachiopod it revealed some more fossils. I made one mistake in this process, I forgot to take before pictures so a visual comparison could be made. Luckily, I have taken some pictures of other fossils types to show in future posts.

The green arrows show the locations of several very small Cornulites worm tubes attached in the shell ridges.