Palaeontologist preparing a fossil using a micro sandblaster. The pen-sized tool is connected to a reservoir of sand and a compressor that blasts abrasive grains of sand onto the rock. If the fossil is significantly tougher than the rock around it, it's fairly easy to dig it out, but if they're almost the same hardness, it takes a lot of experience to dig the rock out while altering the fossil as little as possible. Collection Jean-Philippe et Francois-Xavier Blouet, paleontologists.