Sue at The Field Museum

Preparation and Mounting

Before Sue’s skeleton could be placed on display, each of the 200 plus bones had to be prepared by a team of skilled technicians. Each fossilized bone was carefully removed from the rocky matrix that surrounded it, and the bones were cleaned and repaired. Field Museum preparators spent more than 25,000* hours preparing Sue’s bones -- 3,500 hours were spent on the skull alone. (© The Field Museum GN89035_36c)

(*this is equal to one person working 15 years, full-time!)

Find out how Sue became a fossil. Continue >>

How do you remove fossilized bones from surrounding rock? See fossil preparation step-by-step. >>

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