Lab Tools

What Tools Do We Use in the Lab?

Even though fossils are made out of rock and minerals, they’re very fragile and can break very easily—especially when they’re being cleaned up with power tools! Special glues and other materials can be used to fit the pieces back together like a puzzle if anything breaks off.

Photo by Mark A. Philbrick

To fill in gaps, we use plaster or auto-body putty. Cyanoacrylate (a very strong glue) and epoxy resin are used to repair bigger pieces. If the fossil breaks into small pieces, we use a weaker "glue" called vinac, along with an activating spray to make sure it sticks. After a few minutes, the fossil is stabilized and in one piece again.

Often, when a fossil is collected from the original rock (called matrix), pieces of rock come with it and have to be removed from the fossils in a lab before they can be studied or displayed.

Photo by Nate Edwards

Sometimes matrix comes off with a little water and a toothbrush, but often the rock is too hard to scrub off. Tools like miniature jackhammers, called air scribes, are used to break the matrix away to uncover the fossil. In some cases, it’s even faster to use a good old-fashioned hammer and chisel!