
Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!
| Friday, March 13th | General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom. Jeffrey Amelse will be presenting “Archaeological, Geological, and Other Historic Sites in Portugal.” |
| Saturday, March 14th | Field Trip – “Escape the Excavation: A hands-on archaeological adventure” – College of DuPage, 1pm – 3pm. Details here. |
| Saturday, March 21st | 66th ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show at the DuPage County Fairgrounds. Details here. |
| Sunday, March 22nd | 66th ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show at the DuPage County Fairgrounds. Details here. |
| No meeting this month | Mineralogy Study Group |
| No meeting this month | Paleontology Study Group |
| No meeting this month | Junior Study Group |
Here are the Live Auction Items.
Here are some scenes from the show setup… just 2 hours to showtime!
Last preview… a Riker Mount with a Mazon Creek Asterophyllites and a Sphenopterid… both are beautiful fossils. Today is the day… come out at 10 AM and see all the auction items for yourself!
One last chunk of beautiful fluorite… nice purple crystals on a bed of sphalerite. Sounds and looks tasty! If you are up this late (or is that early), you deserve a tasty preview… just a few hours until the show starts!
How about another Mazon Creek seed fern? This one is Neuropteris jacksonii (see Mazon Monday #250). If you are reading this… today is the day!
This preview is of a chunk of shale from St. Clair, PA. This piece contains numerous examples of Alethopteris serlii, a seed fern also found in Mazon Creek localities. We are getting very close now… inside 12 hours away!
Here’s yet another beautiful chunk of fluorite from Illinois. This one is purple and was collected from Cave-in-Rock, IL. many years ago. Come and see it tomorrow… less than a day away!
What fossil show is complete without a Green River fish? Here is a nice Priscacara, sp. These fish date to the Eocene, about 50 million years ago. We have other Green River fish, come on out and see them!
How about a giant Moroccan trilobite for something different? Come on out… we will have other trilobites at the show.
This is a beautiful specimen of Laveineopteris rarinervis (see Mazon Monday #81) a seed fern commonly found in the Mazon Creek fossil deposit. Come on out and check it out tomorrow!
Time for another beautiful mineral specimen. This is calcite from Ourey, Colorado. Come on out tomorrow… there is something for everyone!
Another Mazon Creek beauty… this is a nice Achistrum, sp. colony, which is a sea cucumber. You can see at least three mouths in the fossil. See Mazon Monday #29. Come on out and see for yourself, tomorrow, yes, tomorrow! Less than a day away!
Another crinoid plate from the Bangor Formation in Northern Alabama. This plate has multiple crinoids and other fossils like Archimedes bryozoans. Tomorrow is the day!
This chunk of crystalline copper is from southwest Africa. Tomorrow is the day!
Here’s beautiful example of a Coelocanth scale Mazon Creek’s Pit 11 locality. Look closely, the preservation is very detailed. Did we mention the tomorrow is the show… see you there!
Jellyfish, which have no hard parts, are very rare in the fossil record. This species Hiemalora stellaris was found in the Cambrian rocks of the Blackberry Hill Deposit of Marathon County, Wisconsin. Come on out tomorrow and it can be yours!
What a beautiful blue! The specimen of Azurite hails from the Daye District, Ezhou Prefecture, Hubei Province, China. Less than a day until the door open!
We have a bunch of Mazon Creek fossils this year… here’s another nice cone – Calomostachys, sp. One day away from the show… are you coming?!?
We have some real nice pieces of fluorite for this year’s show. Here is a beautiful yellow specimen from Hardin County, IL. Tomorrow is the day… come on out!
Today, we have a cute little Acanthotelson stimpsoni (see Mazon Monday #52) from the Mazon River. Acanthotelson stimpsoni is a syncarid shrimp. It’s the most common shrimp found in the Braidwood fauna.