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Fossil Friday #335: A Couple of Beautiful Rhacophyllum
Read more: Fossil Friday #335: A Couple of Beautiful RhacophyllumLong-time member Marty Houdek recently sent me a couple photos of Rhacophyllum from Mazon Creek. The first one is a sweet Rhacophyllum clarkii (see Mazon Creek #170), from one of the Braidwood pits (2, 3, or maybe 4?). It’s beautiful. It opened this past summer via freeze/thaw… after being collected 30 years ago!
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Throwback Thursday #335: A Look Back At “Brag Night” in the 1960’s
Read more: Throwback Thursday #335: A Look Back At “Brag Night” in the 1960’sWe hope you’ll come out to “Brag Night” this Saturday, September 19th, 2026! We are sure there will be some very nice treasures to see! “Brag Night” on the first meeting after summer vacation has been an ESCONI tradition for a long time. The first one seems to be 1952. Here is the announcement.
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ESCONI Field Trip to Danville Shale Pile Fossils – Saturday, October 17th, 2026
Read more: ESCONI Field Trip to Danville Shale Pile Fossils – Saturday, October 17th, 2026Danville Field Trip Rules for Saturday, October 17th, 2026 An ESCONI field trip to the Danville, IL Shale Pile for Pennsylvanian fossils is scheduled for Saturday October 17th, 2026 starting at 10 AM. This is on private property and there is an attendance limit of 25 people. The gate will be secured once we are in and locked when we leave. Plan on being off the hill at 3 PM to give time for specimen identification and pictures. You must register to go on this trip. See rule 6 below for instructions. This is the only way to register. Those…
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ESCONI “Brag Night” 2026 – Saturday, September 19th, 2026 at 7:30 PM at the College of DuPage, TEC 1038B
Read more: ESCONI “Brag Night” 2026 – Saturday, September 19th, 2026 at 7:30 PM at the College of DuPage, TEC 1038BCome on out and show off your finds for 2026! “Brag Night” has been a ESCONI tradition since the very beginning!
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Mazon Creek #340: Neuropteris thompsoniana
Read more: Mazon Creek #340: Neuropteris thompsonianaThis is Mazon Monday post #340. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at esconi.info@gmail.com. Neuropteris thompsoniana was described by William Culp Darrah (1909-1989), in 1969. Darrah was an American professor of biology at Gettysburg College, in Pennsylvania. He was a specialist in paleobotany. In addition to paleontology, Darrah had a deep interest in 19th century photography, and published several works on the subject. His daughter, Elsie, wrote and edited book “Historical Perspective on Early Twentieth Century Carboniferous Paleobotany in North American”, which was dedicated as a memorial volume to her father. N. thompsoniana is a very rare variety of Neuropteris. It is…
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PBS Eons: Why Were Sails So Popular 300 Million Years Ago
Read more: PBS Eons: Why Were Sails So Popular 300 Million Years AgoPBS Eons has a new video. This one is about a time when many animals had sails. This is a tale about sails, and the enigma of why, for a brief but critical phase in the history of life, sporting a big biological billboard was all the rage.
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The World’s First Bugs Had Way More Legs
Read more: The World’s First Bugs Had Way More LegsThe New York Times has an interesting article about research that has uncovered an early insect. The animal, Chosha praecursor, lived about 324 million years ago during the Carboniferous Period in what is now Texas. It looked very similar to modern day silverfish, with a huge difference… it had 24 legs! C. praecursor was described in the paper “Amphibious stem-insect sheds light on colonization of land”, which was published in Nature. Erik Tihelka’s first glimpse of one of the world’s oldest insects came from an outdated Russian textbook that he bought on eBay. In it, a small line drawing of…
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Fossil Friday #334: Mariopteris from Pit 4
Read more: Fossil Friday #334: Mariopteris from Pit 4I was talking to Ralph Jewell and Jeremy Zimmerman at the Braceville field trip a few weeks ago and they showed me a very nice fern fossil. Make that a seed fern… it seems to be a variety of Mariopteris, maybe Mariopteris decipens (see Mazon Monday #108) or the much rarer Mariopteris wilmingtonenese (see Mazon Monday #211). What do you think? Let’s hear your thoughts…
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Throwback Thursday #334: Gorgeous George in 1976
Read more: Throwback Thursday #334: Gorgeous George in 1976This is “Gorgeous George”, when he was on display in the main gallery in 1976. He and the Lambeosaurus were star attractions at the museum from 1956 to 1992. He was incorrectly called a Gorgosaurus for most of its “life”. That was corrected in 1999 and he is now known as a Daspletosaurus, a rare species of tyrannosaur. “George” originally hailed from Alberta, Canada and was found by none other than Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).
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ESCONI September 2026 General Meeting, Friday, September 11th, 2026 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “Searching for Colorado’s Tiktaalik on the West Coast of Laurentia”
Read more: ESCONI September 2026 General Meeting, Friday, September 11th, 2026 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “Searching for Colorado’s Tiktaalik on the West Coast of Laurentia”The September 2026 General Meeting will be held on Friday, September 11th, 2026 at 8:00 PM via Zoom. Our presentation is by Franklin Duffy, PhD Student and Research Affiliate from The Field Museum and Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He will be presenting “Searching for Colorado’s Tiktaalik on the West Coast of Laurentia.” This presentation is a spotlight on our fieldwork in the Late Devonian Parting Formation of Colorado and the transitional “fishapod” fossils that can be found there. This talk will be a deep dive into why the timing, depositional environment and fossil taxa suggest that this is…
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What Did Jurassic Forests Sound Like? Like This.
Read more: What Did Jurassic Forests Sound Like? Like This.The New York Times has an interesting story about the sounds of Jurassic forests. Insect chirps, trills, and clicks make up a large part of the Earth’s modern soundscape. Recently, a group of researchers looked at fossilized insect wings from the Jurassic to determine the sounds they’d make 150 million years ago. The research paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This buzzy chorus contains the calls of nine species of prehistoric insects that an international team of scientists spent more than a decade reconstructing. The insects, which are the relatives of modern-day crickets and…
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Mazon Monday #339: Braceville Fall 2026 Field Trip Report
Read more: Mazon Monday #339: Braceville Fall 2026 Field Trip ReportAt the end of August, ESCONI held our annual Fall field trip to the Braceville Spoil Pile, known as “Worm Hill.” It was a huge success. The weather cooperated for the most part. Saturday, August 29th was a beautiful day, with no rain and highs in the mid-70’s. Unfortunately, Saturday, August 30th started out with rain, but that slowed and stopped by about 10 AM. The ground soaked up most of the water and some of the shale was softened for our ready picks and shovels.
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A Nearly 200-Year-Old Museum Known for Its T. Rex Faces Extinction
Read more: A Nearly 200-Year-Old Museum Known for Its T. Rex Faces ExtinctionThe New York Times has a piece about the plight of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The institution first opened its door in 1828… nearly 200 years ago. It is the oldest natural history museum in the US. Due to financial difficulties since the Covid-19 pandemic, it is being forced to close at the end of September. At the end of September, the facility known for its Dinosaur Hall and its extensive collection of fossils and other specimens will permanently close, a casualty of struggling attendance and rising costs, the academy and the university said in a joint message on Tuesday. The message…
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PBS Eons: What Drove Life Into The Trees?
Read more: PBS Eons: What Drove Life Into The Trees?There’s a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about the evolution of arboreal living. Watch Eons: Life and Death on Pangea on the free PBS App: https://to.pbs.org/EonsApp or on the web here: https://pbs.org/eons ← use this link if you are outside of the U.S. How and when did tetrapods move into the trees? And why? Turns out, the story of climbing may have less to do with trees and more to do with their leaves.
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Fossil Friday #333: Crossotheca sagittata plate
Read more: Fossil Friday #333: Crossotheca sagittata plateToday, we have a largish plate of Crossotheca sagittata. Crossotheca sagittata is the fertile form of Pecopteris fontainei (see Mazon Monday #129). Remember, paleobotany specifies separate species for different plant parts, which is why we have two names for the same plant. This concept is known as form genera.
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Throwback Thursday #333: Looking Back At ESCONI for September 2026
Read more: Throwback Thursday #333: Looking Back At ESCONI for September 2026ESCONI highlights from 25, 50, and 70 years ago
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ESCONI Events for September 2026
Read more: ESCONI Events for September 2026Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings! Friday, September 11th General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom. Franklin Duffy, PhD student and research affiliate from the Field Museum and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will be presenting “Searching for Colorado’s Tiktaalik on the West Coast of Laurentia.” Saturday, September 12th Junior Study Group Meeting – 2:00 PM at College of DuPage, TEC, Room 1038A “Volcanoes” Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, gallowayscottf@gmail.com. Saturday, September 19th Field Trip to Mount Orab for Ordovician Trilobites Details are here. Saturday, September 19th Paleontology…
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Denver Museum of Nature & Science – Only a few days left … Ends September 7th, 2026
Read more: Denver Museum of Nature & Science – Only a few days left … Ends September 7th, 2026Only a few days left!!!! Step inside the world of sauropods in “The World’s Largest Dinosaurs.” Stand beneath a towering, life-sized 60-foot Mamenchisaurus and discover the amazing biology behind the largest animals to ever live.
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Save the Date! 2027 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – March 20th and 21st, 2027
Read more: Save the Date! 2027 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – March 20th and 21st, 2027Save the date! The 2027 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show will be held on March 20th and 21st, 2027 at the DuPage County Fairgrounds. See you there!
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Mazon Monday #338: Howellitubus whitfieldorum… The Mazon Creek Worm That Wasn’t
Read more: Mazon Monday #338: Howellitubus whitfieldorum… The Mazon Creek Worm That Wasn’tThe history of Mazon Creek paleontology is filled with fossils that have been reinterpreted as new species when new information became available. Animals have been moved from one group to another, species have been renamed, and some fossils once thought to represent animals have turned out to be something else entirely. There are even some, like Tullymonstrum gregarium, whose place on the tree of life is still being determined. Another particularly interesting story is Howellitubus whitfieldorum. Howellitubus whitfieldorum was described by Eugene Richardson Jr. in the 1956 Fieldiana paper “Pennsylvanian Invertebrates of the Mazon Creek Area, Illinois – Marine Fauna”.…
Mazon Creek Fossil Day – October 10th, 2026!
Most Recent Post
- Fossil Friday #335: A Couple of Beautiful Rhacophyllum
Long-time member Marty Houdek recently sent me a couple photos of Rhacophyllum from Mazon Creek. The first one is a sweet Rhacophyllum clarkii (see Mazon Creek #170), from one of the Braidwood pits (2, 3, or maybe 4?). It’s beautiful. It opened this past summer via freeze/thaw… after being collected 30 years ago!
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Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!
| Friday, September 11th | General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom. Franklin Duffy, PhD student and research affiliate from the Field Museum and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will be presenting “Searching for Colorado’s Tiktaalik on the West Coast of Laurentia.” |
| Saturday, September 12th | Junior Study Group Meeting – 2:00 PM at College of DuPage, TEC, Room 1038A “Volcanoes” Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, gallowayscottf@gmail.com. |
| Saturday, September 19th | Field Trip to Mount Orab for Ordovician Trilobites Details are here. |
| Saturday, September 19th | Paleontology Study Group – 7:30 PM at College of DuPage, TEC, Room 1038A ESCONI Brag Night! |
| No meeting this month | Mineralogy Study Group |