Thread: Mammoth tooth as scaling material?

Originally Posted by JoeLowett

After thinking about this I might want to hold off in the mammoth experiments gor this one . When I dream of what it looks like when it's done I keep on envisioning musk ox- any ideas where I can come about a 6" piece? Also is the horn tip similar to the bumps?

Joe, I know a guy who regularly gets MO boss from a supplier in Greenland. It isn't the cheapest stuff, but he has sold 7" wide by 3/4" slabs for reasonable prices. Let me know when you are ready.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

I have worked with it, is true fossil, 100% minerialiezd (sp) you need a diamond saw to slab it.

No it's not. If it was 100% fossilized it would be like petrified wood-all rock. It simply hasn't been in the ground long enough. The process is in progress.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

No it's not. If it was 100% fossilized it would be like petrified wood-all rock. It simply hasn't been in the ground long enough. The process is in progress.

Mine was like rock, totally fossilized,what you need to realize is that woolly Mammoths were on this earth 40 million yrs ago to as little as 10K yrs ago. depends on how old the tooth is.

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

Aha! It was you who got that one.
(Not that I even bid on it, but I had been thinking about it)

IMO, it's already been rescaled so one more isn't going to hurt anything. But those scales are restorable. I fix up old Sheffield scales like that all the time (and yes, I saw the other picture with the bug bites).

I wish I could tell you anything about the razor other than 'it's really weird'. I've seen one or two others with the strange tail and I just have no idea what's going on there. Maybe they were made for surgical prep?

Be that as it may, it's a fine, fine looking razor!

+1.... I was WATCHING that one as well (WHO WASN'T!) Pricey...BUT RARE! Glad to see it went to a real 'Sheffield Lover'...

WP34

Petrified or Fossilized?

I suppose it all depends on the subject, how long it has been buried and how.

Petrified fossils are 100% stone - all the organic matter has been replaced with minerals. Fossilized remains gradually have the organic components leached away and replaced by minerals in water, so there is a part-way process where organic and mineral matter co-exist.

Some mammoth ivory is dredged off the sea bed - it has never been buried. Some mammoths fell into tar pits, so there was never a question of water bearing minerals penetrating them. Some were buried and fully fossilized. Some were buried and partly fossilized.

Mastodons and mammoths may have been around for a very long time (5 million years ago), but they only disappeared about 10 thousand years ago in europe and 4.5 thousand years ago in Siberia. A small sub-group remained until 3.75 thousand years ago before full extinction.

The rather vague amount of time it takes to call something a true fossil is something like 10 thousand years.

Regards,
Neil

Bye federal law (U.S) all pre 1972 walrus Ivory is considered FOSSIL, go figure

Hey Joe, I found some musk ox boss for a very decent price. PM sent.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Bye federal law (U.S) all pre 1972 walrus Ivory is considered FOSSIL, go figure

The law in that instance uses the term Fossil in a different way.