A VIDEO documenting the fossil preparation of a prehistoric marine reptile will be shared on YouTube.
The Museum of Jurrassic Marine Life, located in Kimmeridge on the Jurassic Coast, released its latest video on Friday, June 3.
The video shows the skilled art of fossil preparation of an ichthyosaur, demonstrated by Dr Steve Etches, MBE.
The specimen unlocked the secrets of the reptile that was a new discovery for science.
More than 100 hours of footage was filmed across four months.
Fear not – the video isn’t that long. It was sped up 296,000 per cent to create a two-minute timelapse video for public viewing.
Dr Steve Etches MBE said: “My interest in preparing this find really lay in what this specimen revealed, we knew it was an Ichthyosaur, but the excitement came from the fact that it could hold scientifically important specimen because we believed that it is an ancestor to an ichthyosaur called Eurhinosaurus.”
Preparation of fossil specimens is a necessary process to expose samples from the rock matrix.
Preparation is done using a variety of techniques such as air penning, used initially to remove the surface of the rock before air abrasion, which is used to reveal the finer details.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here