Mount Rushmore

N.J. Bud Goldstone <budgoldstone [at] yahoo__com> writes

>Clear statements made to me by Ms. Florian during and after the talk
>lead to the conclusion that this treatment for fungus removal should
>never have been used, was questionable at best and may well cause
>harmful and irreparable damage to the surfaces of the presidential
>faces of our unique US National Monument. ...

To clarify my statements. As a guest scholar  at the GCI I gave a
talk on my literature review of "The community of microorganisms on
rock surfaces--what are they doing there?" As one part of this
review I collated information on conservation treatments of the
past. My statements, alluded to in your comments, were from these
references on treatments which reported that reinfestation of
surfaces occurred soon after washing and mechanically removing
lichens. The reasons for this are that on removal of the
microorganism structures, the film--mainly polysaccharide--remains
conditioning the surface for rapid re-establishment. Also during the
process of removal, microorganism fragments, spores, etc are readily
distributed, contaminating the whole surface.   I am a biologist and
cannot make any comments re effects on the rock surfaces.

I compliment you on your pursuit as watchdog of your heritage and
appreciated your remarks at the talk.

Mary-Lou Florian
Research Associate
Royal BC Museum


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:50
                 Distributed: Thursday, April 13, 2006
                       Message Id: cdl-19-50-002
                                  ***