The initial step was to clean the cores to make their sedimentary features visible for description.
Because the shale in the cores was in many instances too friable to allow slabbing, the cores were sanded
and polished by hand in order to maintain the integrity of the core. Sanding was done with a succession of
100 and 500-grit sandpaper. The cores were then described from bottom to top. This was done with the
aid of a 15X binocular microscope, a high-powered light, and wetting with water to improve contrast.
Available bedding planes were examined for fossils.