It took another 60,000,000 years but nature got there in the end. The Quinceratops, a five horned distant cousin of the famous Triceratops, a fearsome looking herbivore that spent most of its day avoiding the king of all dinosaurs, the carnivorous Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Actual Prehistoric Triceratops Scull

Emerging from a very large river pebble with several sandy fault lines, Quinceratops is a fanciful representation of the fossilized scull of a creature that could easily have evolved 60 million years ago, but didn't.

The sandy fault lines almost caused me to abandon this piece, but having started I decided to continue. At the end of each session I injected superglue into the fissures. Some fault lines can occasionally be stronger than the marble, depending on the material that is deposited as the layers of calcium are deposited during the original formation of the sedimentary rock.

I don't know what process interrupts the deposition of predominantly calcium layers with one of sandy material. The sandy layer is unaffected by the metamorphosing of the limestone into marble over time and under pressure and thus forms a weak bond between adjacent layers of marble. So far my superglue injection method seems to work well in fixing these imperfections in the marble.

Also featured in Swedish Wikipedia see here and here.

Progress Pictures

Original Pebble                                          

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Completed Sculpture

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Quinceratops and Diesel the Cat

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