The art of restoring fossils, “puzzles” of millions of years in the US

Before being displayed in a museum, the fossils of a dinosaur they go through artists who must remove the soil, reconstruct them and paint them in such a way that they look perfect to the human eye. For restaurateur Lauren McClain, it’s like putting together a puzzle in 3D.

In her workshop on the second floor of her home in the Kingwood neighborhood, northeast of Houston, Texas, Lauren uses a type of mini-drill connected to a compressor, similar to a dentist’s tool, with which she carefully removes particles. of soil attached to these remains that are over 60 million years old.

Once clean, you should assemble this “puzzle” millennial, which many times does not arrive complete. She molds the missing parts of a Tyrannosaurus femur, a Triceratops finger or tibia, the femur of an Edmontosaurus or the teeth of a Megalodon. She has also already worked on a 200 million year old Eurypterida (known as a sea scorpion) fossil.

“People tell me: you have to be good at puzzles, and I don’t really like them very much. But when it’s a 3D puzzle that turns into a dinosaur, I like that.”explains McClain, 33.

“It’s similar because when you have something that’s in a hundred pieces, you really have to study all those edges and how they line up and refine those details to rebuild it and make it what it was,” he adds.

Several of these gigantic beings inhabited what is today North America. States such as Montana, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Florida and California are often attractive to fossil hunters.

prehistoric femur

A fan of the Jurassic Park saga since she was a child, Lauren even got married at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, where large dinosaur skeletons are displayed.

She graduated as a designer and in parallel to her formal work, a few years ago she began doing excavations. With the help of mentors and professional paleontologists she ventured into the restoration business and set up her own venture: Big Sky Fossils.

Seven months ago he quit his office job and dedicates himself solely to fossils. Recently, he received the cranial dome of a pachycephalosaur from a Texas museum.

And while he looks for more space to expand the workshop, in the garage of his house he restores a hadrosaurid femur. The piece measures 1.30 m, almost Lauren’s size (1.60 m.)

She reconstructs the femur by placing an internal metal rod for stability. After cleaning, she glues the pieces together with a powerful glue and uses epoxy putty to fill in the empty spaces. When finished, she must paint it with a color similar to the original.

“Restoring missing pieces of fossils is often the most difficult part because not only do you need to understand the anatomy of that specific dinosaur, but you also need a good reference. “I talk to many paleontologists to get it right”explains Lauren.

Patience and observation

David Temple, curator of paleontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, says movies make people believe that fossils are found intact in the ground.

“The reality is different. “Every fossil that is found needs a certain degree of healing, restoration and consolidation because even the act of removing it from the earth is destructive,” he says, from the museum’s Cretaceous period hallways.

Once restored, the fossils are also used to make replicas that are displayed in different places.

“Many paleontologists prepare their own fossils, but not all, and they recognize that the people who do this work [de restauración] “has a specialized skill,” he adds.

“If you look at some of our trilobites (extinct marine arthropod), not many people in the world do it (cleaning and restoration). “Patience is important, observation is important, and being willing to learn,” he assures.

And you have to be careful, he says. It happens that when someone glues together parts of the bone that don’t fit, they joke that they invented “a new species.”

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