In a story I am working on, I would like to have character to do rubbings of fossils with charcoal and paper, the way rubbings of gravestones are done. Is this something that is ever done? Have any of you ever done it? I don’t want to use it if it is not realistically possible--instead, I can have her do sketches. The Chazy reef is the setting of my story. I have been there and checked out the fossils. I would take another trip out there and try doing rubbings myself, but it is under a foot of snow right now. In case someone says it depends on what kind of fossils or geology, I have included a link to the Chazy reef. I tried to find a good link, but I'm not sure how helpful they actually are.
I'm not sure about "gravestone rubbing" but I'm assuming what you mean is something like "brass rubbing". many churches in the UK have memorial, etched, brass plates which depict the dead figure (often a knight in armour). Laying paper over these, and rubbing with crayon or charcoal, usually gets you an outline image of the etching; the paper "gives" very slightly where the lines are etched into the brass, and so you get a white-on-grey outline of the brass engraving.
For you to do the same with fossils, the fossil would have to be recessed into the stone. Most of the fossils I know of (and I know someone who sells fossils and gems on a market stall), once exposed, are actually raised above the surface of the stone - the stone has either been eroded or split to expose the harder fossil within. My guess is that the best way to get the effect of a brass rubbing would be to take a cast (plaster or resin) of the fossil first, then do the rubbing from that, but it sounds a rather involved process. I'm not at all sure that would be suitable for your purposes. Although if a fossil has been exposed by cleaving rather than eroding, I guess there would be a ready-made negative that might serve as a rubbing base.
Posted by Smaug (Member # 2807) on :
If you do a Google search on "fossil rubbings" it comes up with a multitude of listings. Most of them are about fun activities that kids can do, and I didn't have time to wade through more of them to find out if this was any kind of a scientific method--or just something fun for a kid to do. Give it a try.
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
People used to do the rubbings of petroglyphs here in my area, which are stone etchings done thousands of years ago by native americans. The practice is now illegal because it causes damage and wear & tear to the artifact. Your character may be able to do fossil rubbings, but someone, somewhere in their world, is sure to object to it for those reasons.
Posted by Kickle (Member # 1934) on :
Thanks, I feel stupid. I usually google everything, but I thought this was too weird. Tchernabyelo, interesting about the "brass rubbing". We don't have cool things like brass plates with knights, so people have to "rub" grave stones--but some of them are interesting and beautiful.
Posted by Kickle (Member # 1934) on :
Elan, fortunately my story is set in the 19th century when people were less aware. All of you guys have made me feel better about my idea.
Posted by keldon02 (Member # 2398) on :
This sounds like a really intriguing thing for a character to do. One could easily imagine rubbings being done on a wide variety of limestones. In fact when the weather clears I may go out and try it myself on the local Mississippian crinoid gardens.
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited March 09, 2006).]
Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :
Nope. Doesn't happen.
I spent a lot of time researching a show and interviewing paleontologists and professional fossil hunters. Sketches were the key in the 1800s. Most fossils don't come out of the ground clean enough to do a rubbing anyway. That lovely smooth background you see at museums is the plaster base that the fossils are placed into.
[This message has been edited by MaryRobinette (edited March 09, 2006).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Most of your interesting fossils aren't in very hard stone. If you try to do a rubbing, they break very easily. Using plaster of paris to take an imprint or to embed the fossil is more usual.
Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :
I am a geologist and have taught paleontology.
They would have sketched the fossil for reasons explained above. Most other methods would have damaged fossils preserved as soft materials. It is possible to do a rubbing of a fossil, I have done so, but it seldom works as well as sketching it. You can also do a latex mold, but then you have to make a cast from teh mold, and the method may damage the fossil and is cumbersone, messy and a pain in the butt.
If the fossil is big enough, you can use a camera lucida method to get the major lines and outline in, then sketch in the fill. Most commonly you would do this by using a stipple technique with pen and ink.
If the fossil is microscopic, you can sketch it using a modified camera lucida method in which you look at the fossil with one eye through an ocular and look at the paper you are sketching on with the other. Takes a bit of getting used to, but it works very well.
In the world-class research reference for fossils, the Treatise of Invertebrate Paleontology, most illustrations are stipple-and-line sketches. Stipple sketching is a lot like crafting fiction; you only include those details pertinent to the story.
[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited March 09, 2006).]
Posted by Kickle (Member # 1934) on :
Mary, I am particularly interested in paleontology in the mid 1800's and your thoughts helped me bring the story back into focus. The character doing the rubbing is not a professional so, at first, technique seemed unimportant, but I now realize that a lady would not be groveling on the ground with charcoal--sometimes creative inspiration is out of character and timeperiod. These fossils are very large and mostly like could not be removed from the barren "pasture" where they are. What was the show you worked on?
Mike, you have given me food for thought--just what I need at this stage. I know what you mean by stipple sketching and had not thought about that. The camara lucida is also inspiring. With all the possiblities, I guess the paleontologist who was a secondary character is going to move up the ranks. I've decided to take a trip to the Echocenter in Burlington to check out their prehistoric and discovery display. Thanks to everyone here I have a better idea what to pay attention to.
Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :
Someone might be walking along an exposed shale outcrop and see a fossil impression of a fish or something else. If they are not professionals, they might do the charcole rubbing if it is in the middle of a large sheet and they are not ready to break it out. Fossil foot prints might also be rubbed. All this is especially true if the person is not fully experianced in damage such rubbings could do to an impression.
[This message has been edited by rstegman (edited March 10, 2006).]
Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :
When in 1800s are you working?
The show I worked on was about Mary Anning who is widely regarded as the first professional fossilist. She was born in 1799 and died in 1847. Her life is one of the most fascinating true stories ever.
When she was twelve she discovered an entire ichthyosaur skelton (those of you with a copy of issue 1 of Shimmer can see one on the back cover)which caused a huge hub-bub in Britain. At this point there wasn't even a word for geology, much less paleontolgy. The science was called undergroundology.
Now people pulled fossils out of the ground before this, but they weren't recognized as being from extinct animals.
Anyway, I'll see if I've got my reference list of books and send it over. I'm not at home, so there's a fairly poor chance of me having it but I'll do what I can.
Posted by Kickle (Member # 1934) on :
The story takes place in 1848 because that was the year a whale skeleton was discovered in Vermont. My main character is from Leith, Scotland, so Mary Anning could easily have been someone she was aware of. I am so excited about the terminology, that was something I knew I had to research, but I was a loss as to where to begin. So far, I have been reading period natural history books and figuring out what questions I wanted to ask when I hit the University of Vermont's geology museum ( where the whale skeleton is). I already planned on having Emma Willard as part of the story's plot and it is great to have a second historical woman character to include. Mary, I am not in any hurry, so keep me in mind and send me the reference list at any point--if and when you unearth it. By the way, other than the information I got here, the best discription I got of how a fresh broken upper leg/hip feels to the touch was from a woman who worked on a ski patrol.
Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :
Yes, she is remembered by geologists as Ammonite Annie, even if she was never called that in her lifetime.
"And they rin up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stanes like sae many roadmakers run daft. They say it is to see how the world was made."
Sir Walter Scott
Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :
Sorry. No luck on the reference material and I won't be back home until July. (I'm in Iceland again.) But, I did remember the name of a fantastic book. Terrible lizard : the first dinosaur hunters and the birth of a new science by Deborah Cadbury.
Posted by Kickle (Member # 1934) on :
Actually, yesterday, I checked out the book rack at the childrens nature and history museum, but they had nothing interesting--and now I have something to request. I did have fun at the museum playing with the "touch" fossils display and pushing kids out of the way at the "digging up whale bones interactive sand pit". That pit seemed a bit of a tight fit for an adult. I can't tell you how grateful I am, thanks to you all I am even more excited about this story than I was before. Mary, enjoy Iceland--I still remember the story you wrote about Iceland and the construction site.
