Shell Preparation - Bath Time!

Aloha everyone!

Exciting news! We have begun preparing our shells for shipping!

Each isotope facility requires shells be prepared in slightly different ways, but they all have one thing in common: shells must be completely clean, free of any dirt. Our shells have been sitting in the dirt at Ka'ena Point State Park for thousands of years, so this poses a challenge!

First step: they all need a bath!

 

Shells are incubated at approximately 55 degrees Celsius in a hot water bath in the Holland lab.

We scrubbed the outside of all shells thoroughly, and examined them under a microscope to make sure they were as clean as possible. However, sitting under layers of dirt for thousands of years meant that these shells not only had dirt caked on the outside, but also had dirt caked on the inside, as well. A hot water bath would help loosen the dirt up!

A hot water bath is a device that heats up water, and keeps it at a set temperature for a period of time. We wanted these shells to soak for 48 hours, and we wouldn't need to worry about the water cooling down during this time.

We placed our shells in individual tubes filled with deionized water, and then placed these tubes in the raft that you see in the photo above. The water bath circulates the water about every five minutes, and the raft helped our shells avoid hitting the edges and breaking.

Shells sat in this hot water bath for two days. Every 24 hours, we took them out of their tubes and cleaned them a bit more. Sonication helped further loosen soil inside the shells, which is vital for making sure our shells are completely clean for isotope analysis. After two days of soaking, the shells are ready for a deeper cleaning!

 

Shells shortly after being removed from the hot water bath after two days of soaking. The dirt at the bottom of the tubes is soil that was loosened from inside the shell. The large shells at the forefront are our Amastra sp.

Mahalo for all of your support! We are excited to share our progress with all of you.