Or rather, in my case, utterly failing at making a track cast.
Years back, I purchased a track cast from what I strongly suspect is a British dromaeosaur. They leave very distinctive footprints, and are hard to miss. This type of animal would usually hold its second digit (the ‘kill claw’) off the ground while waking. This shows up as a much shortened 2nd toe in these tracks.
If you want a rough approximation of how they walked, take your hand, lay your fingers on a table so that only your fingers and not hand bones are touching the table, and lift up your pointer finger. You should feel the base of that finger being driven deeper into the table. Awkward for us humans, but we do have an unusual walking stance compared to most critters.
Anyhow…
This particular track shows the second toe doing deeper than the others. It’s also shorter, which is why I suspect it might be dromaeosaur. British dromaeosaur material isn’t common, but is present enough to know they were in the ecosystem. I wanted to show what the original print would have looked like in the sediment before it got filled in. So, why not make a plaster cast?
Yes, I was that dumb.
I mixed up the plaster, poured it in a container, and set the track in. Being the novice I was at the time, I didn’t have the foresight to place some kind of barrier between the specimen and the plaster (you know, something like plastic wrap that would have kept the plaster from sticking to the stone).
I learned a couple of things that day.
First, plaster expands as it hardens.
Second, this makes it hard to get your original item out of said plaster.
Third, plaster is very durable.
Yup…track got well and truly stuck. At this point, I don’t care about the plaster cast…I just want my track out. So, time to bust out the tools. Hammer, pliers, screwdriver, all of them. I’m not worried about damaging the track…Hastings material is crazy tough, and I’m not sure could have broken it if I wanted to.
I am making enough noise to wake the Jurassic dead, and I know I scared the living hell out of the teachers around me (though, in fairness, most had come to expect that kind of thing from their nutzoid colleague). I eventually got it out after a solid ten minutes of internal cursing and smashing this thing against my lab bench. The kids later asked if I would give it another try.
The answer was ‘hell to the power of no.’
Leave that to the pros.
Hilary
