By Phil Burgess

Ever since he was a child, long-time Prairie du Chien resident Phil Burgess has been scouring the Tri-State hills collecting fossils. He’s had them stored his yard, house and garage, every so often pulling out a box full to clean and prep for eventual cataloging into his vast collection, which currently amounts to around 75,000 specimens.

The cleaning and prepping process can be quite arduous. After removing stubborn dirt and organic staining the tough chert stones need to be mechanically prepped to better expose their contained fossils. Phil used to do this using hand tools (hammers, small chisels, dental picks) but wasn’t getting the desired details. 

He eventually chose a pneumatic micro-chipping tool, which are used by paleontologists for prepping dinosaur bones and other fossils.

To power the tool, Phil also had to invest in a heavy duty, 60-gallon, 150 lb. capacity floor-mounted air compressor to provide sufficient air pressure to operate it. Bob Tolle, Phil’s neighbor and a retired 3M maintenance department expert, helped Phil install the compressor in his garage. A paleotool uses special hardened styluses and obtains these from a dealer in Utah, where he also has to send his tool in for rebuilding on occasion. The air compressor he obtained at the local True Value store.

Phil’s fossils are turning out to be very rare species -- in some cases likely new to science. He eventually plans on donating them to a chosen domestic repository for study, though the recent Musk/Trump/conservative cutbacks on science and education nationwide may have thrown a wrench into these plans.