January 15, 2000 Micro-Fossils/Identifying Mazon Creek Animals
February 19, 2000 Identifying Mazon Creek Plants
March 18, 2000 Larson Quarry. Bring in Specimens from your trips to this quarry. Dave Carlson will be giving a detailed presentation with overheads, handouts and specimen displays of his collecting at this local quarry. He will discuss the history, geology and analysis of the types of fossils found there.
April 15, 2000 No Meeting due to conflict with MAPS Fossil Expo in Macomb, Illinois. For more information about MAPS, click on MAPS Fossil EXPO
May 20, 2000 Sylvania, Ohio Quarry. Sylvania, Ohio is a world famous fossil locality known for its trilobites, crinoids and pyrotized brachiopods. ESCONI has had several field trips there(1993,1994,1999). Related Web site is Ohio Geological Survey.
September 16, 2000 Show and Tell. Members can bring fossils and stories about what they did over the summer.
October 21,2000 Canada Dinosaurs. David and Sheila Bergman, ESCONI Members, will be discussing the dinosaurs of Canada. They will show slides and videos from their trip to Drumheller, Canada and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology.
Nov 18, 2000 Crinoids. Chris Cozert, ESCONI Member, will be discussing the crinoids. Members will be bringing examples from their own collection.
Jan 20, 2001 "Burgess Shale Videos". David and Sheila Bergmann will be showing two videos of the world famous Burgess Shale fossils of Canada.
Feb 17, 2001 "Fossils From Florida". James Schmidt, a new ESCONI member, will be leading a discussion on collecting fossils in Florida. He will draw upon his own collecting experiences and fossils. Members are invited to bring fossils and share their experiences. A silent auction of fossils to benefit the ESCONI Scholarship program, many from Florida, will follow at the end of the program.
March 17, 2001 "Dinosaur Collecting In New Mexico" David Carlson will be giving a slide program on dinosaur collecting in New Mexico.
April 21, 2001 "Trilobites"
May 19,2001 "Nautiloid" John Catalani, an ESCONI member, will give a presentation on the Nautiloids both past and present using fossils, slides and a special video presentation. John is well-known for his Nautiloid collection and will bring specimens to illustrate his program. A good web site is Chambered Nautilus.
Sept 15, 2001 "Show and Tell" A chance for ESCONI members to bring the fossils that they have collected during the summer or in recent ESCONI field trips for discussion and review. Fossils from Mazon Creek, Lone Star Quarry, Illinois Cement Quarry and others will be displayed.
Nov 17, 2001 "Blastoids" John Catalani and Chris Cozert, ESCONI Members, will be discussing Blastoids. Blastoids were small, stemmed echinoderms, abundant and diverse in the Middle and late Paleozoic (Silurian through Permian). John and Chris will give a presentation about the fossil record of Blastoids and what it tells us about how they lived. Bring your Blastoids from your fossil collection to display.
Jan 19, 2002 "Collecting Fossils in South Dakota and Nebraska" David and Sheila Bergmann will be showing slides, pictures and fossils from their field trip last year to Nebraska and South Dakota. Field Trips for 2002 will be discussed.
Feb 16, 2002 "AMMONITES" John Catalani, an ESCONI member, will give a presentation on the Ammonites focusing on the differences between the now extinct Ammonites and the fossil record and present day Nautiloids. He will use overheads, handouts and fossils. Bring your Ammonites to the meeting.
March 16, 2002 "TRACKS, TRAILS AND TRACE FOSSILS" Karen Nordquist, an ESCONI member (and President) and volunteer at the Field Museum, will talk about how fossils animals react with their environment and leave in the fossil record a history of tracks, trails and traces. Examples are dinosaur footprints, coprolites and gastroliths. Bring your tracks, trails and trace fossils to show at the meeting.
March 2002 Paleo Notes
MAY 18, 2002 "Fossil Fish" Irene Broede, an ESCONI member, will be discussing the fossil history of fish. She will be using slides, overheads, handouts and fossil examples from the Green River formation and other areas. Bring your fossil fish in to share with others.
November 16, 2002 "The Burpee Museum 2002 Field Trip – The Nanotyrannus Find" Dave Carlson will be giving a presentation on his participation on the Burpee Museum 2002 Field Trip, "HIGHWAY TO HELL CREEK". This expedition found a Nanotryannus dinosaur. He will be using slides and overheads.
January 18, 2003 "Excavation of a Mississipian Crinoid Bed in Northern Alabama"Tom Williams of ESCONI will be giving a presentation on collecting crinoids in Northern Alabama. He will be showing slides and overheads along with displaying fossils.
February 15, 2003 "IDENTIFYING MAZON CREEK FOSSILS" Bring your Mazon Creek Fossils and have them identified by ESCONI experts. Bring your best Mazon Creek Fossils and show them off. Help identify unknown fossils.
March 15, 2003 "Collecting Fossils in the Dakotas and Nebraska" by Richard Rock. Richard Rock, an ESCONI member, will be discussing his fossil collecting last summer in the Dakotas and Nebraska. He will be focusing on the Oligocene of Nebraska and the Cretaceous (Hell’s Creek Formation) of South and North Dakota. He will bring turtle fossils, oredonts and dinosaur bones. Bring your fossils from the Dakota’s and Nebraska, especially turtles and oredonts, to share with other club members.
MAY 17, 2003 "Plant Fossils of Mazon Creek" Jack Wittry of ESCONI will be discussing the legendary plant fossils of Mazon Creek. He will be using slides, overheads, handouts and fossil examples from the Mazon Creek of Illinois. Members are invited to bring their Mazon Creek plant fossils and their ESCONI book, Keys to Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Plants of the Mazon Creek Area
OCTOBER 18, 2003 "Highlights of the Evo/Devo of Tetrapods (evolutionary development of four legged critters) " by Jim Schmidt, ESCONI member.
NOV 15, 2003 "Vertebrate Fossils From Mazon Creek " by Jim Testa" Jim Testa will be discussing the vertebrate fossils such as fish found in the Mazon Creek area of northeastern Illinois. He will showing slides and bringing fossils from his collection. Bring your Mazon Creek Vertebrate Fossils.
JAN 17, 2004 PALEONTOLOGY STUDY GROUP Paleo Techniques: Discover, Develop and Display ESCONI members will be discussing different techniques for finding fossils, preparing them, analyzing them and displaying them. Bring your Mazon Creek concretions, trilobites, crinoids and other fossils and discuss what tools (Bring them too) and techniques you use in preparing them. Newcomers can learn from the ESCONI experts.
April 17, 2004 "Palentology and the WWW / Mazon Creek Fossils" by John Good and others. John Good will be discussing the ESCONI web site and other Paleontology web sites using the COD internet links. Afterwards, John Good will use the digital projector to display Mazon Creek fossils. Bring your favorite Mazon Creek fossil(s). We can discuss their significance while viewing them as an overhead projection.
MAY 15, 2004 "Evo / Devo of Aves (Evolutionary Development of Birds) or, a 150 million year flight thru time” by Jim Schmidt, ESCONI Member
SEPT 18, 2004 "Show and Tell" A chance for ESCONI members to bring the fossils that they have collected during the summer or in recent ESCONI field trips for discussion and review. Fossils from Mazon Creek, Lone Star Quarry and others will be displayed.
OCTOBER 16, 2004 "Show and Tell (Continued)" A second chance for ESCONI members to bring the fossils that they have collected during the summer or in recent ESCONI field trips for discussion and review. Fossils from Mazon Creek, Lone Star Quarry and others will be displayed.
NOV 20, 2004 "Origins of Life." by Jim Schmidt, ESCONI member Jim Schmidt will give us another great PowerPoint presentation, reviewing some of the latest scientific understandings of how life got started on Earth. It will contain some eye-opening imagery along with a lot of provocative information. This will discuss what happened before any fossils...before life as we know it...before the "textbook" tree-of-life. We will review the origin of the planet, some of life's basic chemistry, the planet's early environment, and the consequential life-enabling mechanisms. Visitors are welcome. Refreshments will be served.
January 15, 2005 "Mazon Creek Worms and Bivalves” Tom Testa, an E.S.C.O.N.I. member, will be discussing the worms of Mazon Creek and how to identify them. In keeping with the MAPS 2005 focus on bivalves, he will talk about bivalves also. He will bring specimens. Bring your worms and bivalve fossils from Mazon Creek to display also.
March 19, 2005 "Variation in Life" by Jim Schmidt, E.S.C.O.N.I. member. We'll explore several mechanisms of variation including: Mutation, •Anagenesis, •Adaptive radiation, •Prokaryotic Gene Transfer, •Symbiogenesis, •Williamson’s theory, and Karyotypic Fission Theory (aka Kinetochore Reproduction). Don't be scared off by the fancy words. The importance of this is to get a better understanding of evolution. It's that variation which gets selected "for" or "against" by the environment. For many years, scientist have asked the questions of how that happens. What are those mechanisms? What works? What doesn't work. How do they work? These are the things we will explore. It's absolutely amazing...just when you think you've got things figured out.
May, 2007 Mazon Creek Fauna. Members will bring specimens and talk about collecting.
November, 2007 Mazon Creek fossils. Bring your Mazon Creek fossils for identification and display.
February, 2008 "Sharks I - Paleozic" by member Tom Williams.
March, 2008 "Sharks II - Mesozoic" period by member Tom Williams.
April, 2008 "Sharks III" will be presented by Tom Williams. Emphasis is on the Cenozoic Time
May, 2008 Illinois Stratigraphy by Tom Williams
June-August, 2008 - Summer Vacation - no meetings
September, 2008 - Show and Tell
October, 2008 - Show and Tell (part two)
November, 2008 - "The PreCambrian Era: The world of Ediacaran fossils and more."
December, 2008 - Christmas Vacation - no meeting
