[Nhcoll-l] Smelly Coral

[Mariana Di Giacomo]

Dear Leslie,

If the coral is in good shape and was prepared properly, one option would
be to use charcoal bags to sequester some of the smell. This method only
works in a confined space (inside a cabinet, for example) but not on open
shelving.

We have done this successfully for IZ collections as well as for skins, and
it is night and day. You can open the cabinet door without falling
backwards.

It is important for you to know that the charcoal bags will absorb some of
the smell but they will need to get reconditioned after a while. The ones
we use only need a few hours in the sun to get reactivated and back they go
into the cabinets.

Hope this helps.
Best,
Mariana

Mariana Di Giacomo, PhD
Natural History Conservator, Yale Peabody Museum
Associate Editor, Collection Forum, SPNHC


On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 16:10 Leslie L Skibinski <lls94 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> I am passing this question along for someone else.  A collection manager
> has a donation of Alaskan Coral that was collected in 2017 and they would
> like to catalog it.  The problem is that it is very stinky.  What should
> they do to reduce the smell without impacting the specimens research value?
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> --Leslie
>
>
>
> Leslie L. Skibinski
>
> Collection Manager
>
>
>
> Paleontological Research Institution
>
> 1259 Trumansburg Road
>
> Ithaca, New York  14850
>
> Phone:  (607) 273-6623  ext. 128
>
> Fax:  (607) 273-6620
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20240308/a1370a7f/attachment.html>