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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?
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Fossil Friday #326: Rhacophyllum cornutum from the Mazon River
Read more: Fossil Friday #326: Rhacophyllum cornutum from the Mazon RiverThis is a very beautiful Rhacophyllum cornutum (see Mazon Monday #266) from the Mazon River. Lil Magnussen showed me this stunner at the spring 2026 Danville field trip. Lil is a long-time ESCONI member… She joined in the 1960’s.
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Throwback Thursday #326: Photos from a 1970 Lapidary Meeting
Read more: Throwback Thursday #326: Photos from a 1970 Lapidary MeetingAndy and Rose Jansen recently received two photos from Mary Hason, daughter of Betty and Chet Williamson. The Williamsons were long-time members, joining ESCONI in 1959!
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Paleontologists Discover New Species of Titanosaur in Uruguay
Read more: Paleontologists Discover New Species of Titanosaur in UruguaySciNews has a post about a new species of titanosaur from Uruguay. Mesetasaurus protector lived between 86 and 72 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. The paper describing this species was published in the journal Ameghiniana. The new species was a member of a group of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs known as Aeolosaurini, a lineage that flourished across South America during the final chapters of the Cretaceous. “Titanosaurians constituted the most abundant and diverse sauropod clade during the Late Cretaceous, with several dozen genera recognized, particularly in South America,” said Dr. Matías Soto Núñez from the Universidad de la República and…
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The 250-million year rise and fall of the dinosaurs | Steve Brusatte
Read more: The 250-million year rise and fall of the dinosaurs | Steve BrusatteBig Think has a video with Steve Brusatte, an American paleontologist, a professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh, and author of a few pop-science books. Steve grew up in Ottawa, IL. He’s spoken to ESCONI in the past. In this video, Steve discusses the origin and the evolution of dinosaurs, mammals, and birds. It’s a great summary of his three books – “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs”, “The Rise and Reign of the Mammals”, and most recently “The Story of the Birds”. Steve Brusatte, the paleontologist behind Jurassic World’s science and author of The Rise…
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Mazon Monday #331: Recap of Tom Testa Day at the Carbon Hill School Museum
Read more: Mazon Monday #331: Recap of Tom Testa Day at the Carbon Hill School MuseumBack in Mazon Tuesday #328, we did a post about Tom Testa and his amazing Mazon Creek fossil collection. There was a great turnout at the Carbon Hill School Museum special event “The Legacy of Tom Testa” on June 25th, 2026.
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Archaeologists in France Dig Up a Jar Packed With Tens of Thousands of 1,800-Year-Old Roman Coins
Read more: Archaeologists in France Dig Up a Jar Packed With Tens of Thousands of 1,800-Year-Old Roman CoinsZME Science has an interesting piece about the discovery of three large jugs containing roman coins. The jug was found during an archaeological dig in the town of Senon in northeastern France. There were more than 25,000 bronze and copper coins dating to the 3rd-century CE in the jugs.
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ESCONI Events for Summer 2026
Read more: ESCONI Events for Summer 2026ESCONI Events for Summer 2026
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PBS Eons: The potato’s origin was a mystery…until now
Read more: PBS Eons: The potato’s origin was a mystery…until nowPBS Eons has a new Youtube Short. This one is about the evolutionary origin of the potato.
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Fossil Friday #325: Radstockia kidstonii
Read more: Fossil Friday #325: Radstockia kidstoniiJeremy Zimmerman sent in photos of this breathtaking Radstockia kidstonii. R. kidstonii is a very rare true fern from Mazon Creek. Its pinnules and fertile structures are similar to the modern fern Marattia alata.
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Throwback Thursday #325: Journey to the Beginning of Time
Read more: Throwback Thursday #325: Journey to the Beginning of TimeOk, who remembers “Journey to the Beginning of Time” on Garfield Goose on morning television in Chicago? Just recently, the trailer to the US version of the movie recently appeared in one of my feeds, so I did a little research to find out more about the film/episodes.
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‘Gus’ the T. rex presented in New York ahead of auction
Read more: ‘Gus’ the T. rex presented in New York ahead of auctionPhys.org has an article about “Gus” the Tyrannosaurus rex. “Gus” lived during the late Cretaceous Period, about 67 million years ago. The fossil is about 61% complete by bone count and 75-80% by bone mass. It was discovered in Harding County, South Dakota in 2021. “Gus” is named after the late rancher Gary “Gus” Licking, on whose land it was found.
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Scientists Discover the First-Ever Molecules Preserved Inside a 113-Million-Year-Old Pterosaur Fossil
Read more: Scientists Discover the First-Ever Molecules Preserved Inside a 113-Million-Year-Old Pterosaur FossilSciTechDaily has a story about an exceptionally preserved pterosaur wing from Brazil. The animal lived about 113 million years ago, during the middle Cretaceous Period, in what is now northeastern Brazil. Its wing phalanx, which refers to the individual bone segments which make up the finger skeleton supporting the wing, was preserved in 3 dimensions with chemical traces that might provide clues to the its diet. The research “Multi-staged mineralization and biomarker preservation in a 113-million-year-old pterosaur bone via redox shifts in diagenesis” was published in the journal iScience.
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Mazon Monday #330: A New Mazon Creek Worm
Read more: Mazon Monday #330: A New Mazon Creek WormWhile you were getting ready to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, a new fossil polychaete from Mazon Creek was being introduced to the world! It’s the first in annelid from Mazon Creek in over 20 years! Mazovermes magnaterminus was described in “The first new polychaete from the Mazon Creek fossil site in 20 years suggests cryptic annelid diversity in the Late Paleozoic”, which was published in the journal Geological Magazine. The paper is open access. The authors, Karma Nanglu, Jack Wittry, and Victoria McCoy, should be familiar to all of those interested in Mazon Creek fossils.
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- Fossil Friday #327: Danville Fish Scale
Andrew 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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| Saturday, July 11th | Field Trip to Mount Orab for Ordovician Trilobites Details were sent in an email. |
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