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Throwback Thursday #329: Looking Back At ESCONI For July/August 2026
Read more: Throwback Thursday #329: Looking Back At ESCONI For July/August 2026The newsletters are typically sparse in the summer, but here is a bit of ESCONI history for your summer reading pleasure. 25, 50, and 70 years ago…
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Storms that built a graveyard: ancient monsoons created a spectacular dinosaur fossil site
Read more: Storms that built a graveyard: ancient monsoons created a spectacular dinosaur fossil siteThe Conversation has an interesting post about an important fossil site in northeastern Italy. The Villaggio del Pescatore site dates to 80 million years ago, which was near the end of the Cretaceous Period. Fossil animals found in the locality were swept in to the area by monsoon rains and tropical cyclones. Dinosaurs, crocodiles, and plants were preserved in river mud on a tidal flat. More details can be found in the paper “Climate-extreme-driven genesis of a Cretaceous dinosaur Lagerstätte” in the journal ScienceDirect. My colleagues and I have published a new study that reconstructs the violent tropical climate behind the Villaggio del Pescatore…
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The Best Forest Preserves Near Chicago for Hiking, County by County
Read more: The Best Forest Preserves Near Chicago for Hiking, County by CountySam S., the editor of the Chicago Signal, sent us a link to this article about hiking the forest preserves in the Chicago area. There are tips about Cook County and all the surrounding counties, even Midewin in Will County. Summer is slowly slipping away… get out there and enjoy some nature! The Chicago Signal has guides about Food & Drink, Things To Do, Real Estate & Moving, and Outdoors & Recreation. Check it out! There are roughly 70,000 acres of forest preserve in Cook County, another 26,000 in DuPage, and 31,600 across 65 sites in Lake. You do not…
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Mazon Monday #334: Mariopteris lobatifolia
Read more: Mazon Monday #334: Mariopteris lobatifoliaMariopteris lobatifolia is one of the rare species of Mariopteris. Its pinnules have a very distinctive wing-like shape. See Mazon Monday #181 for the most common variety of Mariopteris, Mariopteris nervosa.
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PBS Eons: How Pangea Upended Life on Earth
Read more: PBS Eons: How Pangea Upended Life on EarthPBS Eons has released their TV series about Pangea! Check out Episode 2 on pbs.org. In the Late Carboniferous Period, predatory amphibians and giant arthropods ruled the swamps. But ancient seed plants and amniotes were evolving adaptations to drier climates. These will help them thrive on Pangea in the Permian Period to come. This is the first our our six-part series on life and death during the Permian period. Episode 2 is available right now! Watch the full series on the PBS App https://to.pbs.org/EonsApp You can also watch on PBS.org – in particular if you’re outside of the US: https://pbs.org/eons…
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Field Museum – Legendary Late Hours – August 11th, 2026 – Riot Fest Takeover!
Read more: Field Museum – Legendary Late Hours – August 11th, 2026 – Riot Fest Takeover!The Field Museum is holding a “Riot Fest Takeover” on August 11th, 2026 from 5-9 PM. Enjoy extended museum hours from 9am to 9pm, last entry at 8pm. The Field Museum and Riot Fest are partnering up for a righteous Museum takeover from 5pm-9pm on August 11th, complete with music and some seriously sick specimens, to get you geared up for Riot Fest 2026. Our fossils are older than dirt and larger than life. Come dig in with the scientists that dig up our fossils. This event is part of our Legendary Late Hours series, included in general admission. During…
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Fossil Friday #328: A Pit 11 Octomedusa piekorum
Read more: Fossil Friday #328: A Pit 11 Octomedusa piekorumWell, we know how Alan Keith is spending his summer vacation… freeze/thawing his Mazon Creek concretions. Although, probably not out in the hot Texas sun. Alan had this nicely detailed Octomedusa piekorum (see Mazon Monday #54) open up recently.
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Throwback Thursday #328: Go on… Introduce yourself, tiny frog
Read more: Throwback Thursday #328: Go on… Introduce yourself, tiny frogThe Field Museum made an intriguing historical post to LinkedIn last week. It was a meet-and-greet between two frogs…
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ESCONI Field Trip to Braceville, IL for Mazon Creek Fossils – Saturday, August 29th and Sunday, August 30th, 2026
Read more: ESCONI Field Trip to Braceville, IL for Mazon Creek Fossils – Saturday, August 29th and Sunday, August 30th, 2026Braceville Field Trip Rules for August 2026 The ESCONI field trips to Braceville for Mazon Creek fossils are set for August 29th and 30th, 2026 from 9 AM to 3 PM. You can attend one or the other, but not both days. There is an attendance limit of 60 people each day. You must register to go on this trip. See rule 6 below for instructions. This is the ONLY way to register. If you are sick, have any symptoms of Covid-19 or have recently tested positive, DO NOT COME. Meet at 9 AM at the entrance to the collecting site…
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PBS Eons: How the Tibetan Plateau Created the Ultimate Cat
Read more: PBS Eons: How the Tibetan Plateau Created the Ultimate CatPBS Eons has a new video. This one is about the evolution and migration of Homotherium, a large saber-tooted cat that lived on the Tibetan Plateau. How did Homotherium evolve to be so successful, and so different from basically all other cats, living and extinct? Well the answer may lie in a huge geological event: the rise of the Tibetan plateau.
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Mazon Monday #333: Interesting Pennsylvanian Fossil Sites – Okmulgee, Oklahoma
Read more: Mazon Monday #333: Interesting Pennsylvanian Fossil Sites – Okmulgee, OklahomaWay back in Mazon Monday #10, we referenced the paper “Mazon Creek-Type Fossil Assemblages in the U.S. Midcontinent Pennsylvanian” written by G. C. Baird, S. D. Sroka, C. W. Shabica, T. L. Beard, A. C. Scott and F. M. Broadhurst in October 1985. The paper lists and discusses the various Pennsylvanian fossil sites known to produce fossil bearing concretions similar to what is found at Mazon Creek. Although the list of concretionary sites has grown since the paper was published, it’s still relevant and a good read. Check it out, you can download it from ResearchGate.
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Rare Pompeii Ceiling Is Restored From Fragments, Depicting Scene From Myth
Read more: Rare Pompeii Ceiling Is Restored From Fragments, Depicting Scene From MythThe New York Times has an interesting article about the restoration of a fresco at Pompeii. The fresco was restored from hundreds of plaster fragments recovered from the ruins of a house. The house, now called the “House with the Bakery”, was discovered by researchers in 2023. The fragments of plaster were like a “magnificent” puzzle. The scene depicts Dionysus and Ariadne. In Greek mythology, Dionysus is the god of wine, festivity, and revelry, while Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, famously helped the hero Theseus navigate the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur. The vault is a rare…
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PBS Eons: We Made a TV Show!
Read more: PBS Eons: We Made a TV Show!PBS Eons has some exciting news… they made a TV show. It’s a two episode show called “Live and Death on Pangea”. It becomes available on July 29th, 2026 at the PBS app, website, and other places (Youtube?). Hey Eons fans, after 8 seasons of exploring deep time we have some very important news to share… we’ve secretly been working on more stuff! We made a TV Show! Eons: Life and Death on Pangea. The series premieres with 2 episodes dropping on Wednesday, July 29 on the PBS app, website, and other platforms and the very first episode will also…
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Fossil Friday #327: Danville Fish Scale
Read more: Fossil Friday #327: Danville Fish ScaleAndrew Young sent us these photos of an absolutely breathtaking fish scale from our most recent Danville field trip in early May 2026. He found it near the top of the slopes. It opened via freeze/thaw. The scale measures just 1.5 cm. The species is unsure, but it’s likely a lobe-finned fish. The Danville spoil pile contains the remnants of both the Herrin and Danville coals, which makes it younger than Mazon Creek.
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Throwback Thursday #327: Walter Cronkite and… dinosaurs!
Read more: Throwback Thursday #327: Walter Cronkite and… dinosaurs!David Bressan of the History of Geology group on Facebook has an interesting post about the 1991 A&E documentary series “Dinosaur!”. Walter Cronkite was the host. Several episodes are available to watch on YouTube. I vaguely remember watching the series when it aired. Revisiting it today is fascinating as it offers an opportunity to see what scientists knew about dinosaurs more than thirty years ago. It’s remarkable to see just how much our understanding has advanced since then.
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Dinosaur-loving schoolboy opens natural history museum with astonishing fossil collection
Read more: Dinosaur-loving schoolboy opens natural history museum with astonishing fossil collectionThe Guinness World Records website has a story about a natural history museum in Cambridge, IL. This museum in a small Illinois town is significant becase when it opened in August 2024, the curator and sole owner was just 9 years old! It all started in 2022 after a family trip to Scotland. “When I went to Scotland,” Anderson said, “I went to the Staffin Dinosaur Museum and that’s what inspired me to make this museum. I’ve been into dinosaurs and fossils all my life.” As soon as he got back home, he started the long process of turning his…
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Meteorite That Crashed Into New Jersey Home Contains Rare Ingredients of Life
Read more: Meteorite That Crashed Into New Jersey Home Contains Rare Ingredients of LifeGizmodo has news of a meteorite that crashed into a Hillsborough, New Jersey home in July 2024. A recent paper in the journal Science Advances details research into both the makeup and the potential origin of the meteorite.
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Mazon Monday #332: Tom Testa Winter Freeze/Thaw
Read more: Mazon Monday #332: Tom Testa Winter Freeze/ThawSorry, this is a bit of a repeat… But, Tom Testa has been on our minds lately and we’ve all been enduring a stretch of hot weather, so here’s a post that will cool you off!
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NPR: Mystery bidder buys T. rex nicknamed ‘Gus’ for a record $50 million
Read more: NPR: Mystery bidder buys T. rex nicknamed ‘Gus’ for a record $50 millionNPR has a story about the recent auction of “Gus” the Tyrannosaurus rex at Sotheby’s in New York. The winning bid of 50.1 million represents the highest price ever paid for a dinosaur. “Gus” was found by the late Gary “Gus” Licking, a cattle rancher in Harding County, South Dakota. The same county that has yielded other T-rex specimens, including the Field Museum’s SUE. An imposing, 38-foot long Tyrannosaurus rex fossil sold for a record $50.1 million at auction on Tuesday. But its purchase — likely by a private buyer — is being criticized by paleontologists and other scientists. The fossil nicknamed…
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PBS Eons: We found the head of the biggest bug ever
Read more: PBS Eons: We found the head of the biggest bug everPBS Eons has a new short. This one is about Arthropleura, the giant millipede… or is it?
ESCONI Rock, Mineral and Fossil Swap and Sale!
Most Recent Post
- Throwback Thursday #329: Looking Back At ESCONI For July/August 2026
The newsletters are typically sparse in the summer, but here is a bit of ESCONI history for your summer reading pleasure. 25, 50, and 70 years ago…
- About ESCONI
- Around the Web
- Calendar of Events
- Code of Ethics and Conduct
- ESCONI Books for Sale
- ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show
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- Field Trips
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- Mazon Monday
- Member Spotlight
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- Throwback Thursday
- Trilobite Tuesday
Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!
| Saturday, July 11th | Field Trip to Mount Orab for Ordovician Trilobites Details were sent in an email. |
| Saturday, August 15th | ESCONI Rock, Mineral, and Fossil Swap College of Dupage – 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM. Details here. |
| No meetings until September | General Meeting |
| No meetings until September | Paleontology Study Group |
| No meetings until September | Junior Study Group Meeting |
| No meetings until September | Mineralogy Study Group |