Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

ESCONI Events September 2023 #events #calendar #fieldtrip

Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!

Fri, Sep 8th	ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 PM - Topic: “Tropical rainforests - A 300-million-year-old history” by Fabiany Herrera, the Assistant Curator of Paleobotany at the Field Museum Zoom link
Sat, Sep 9th	ESCONI Junior Meeting - 6:30 PM at College of DuPage - Topic: "North Carolina Microfossils" Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, [email protected]. The meeting will be in person at the College of DuPage Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038A (Map).
Sat, Sep 16th	ESCONI Field Trip to Braceville, IL for Mazon Creek  Fossils.  ***Trip Full*** Details are here.
Sat, Sep 16th	ESCONI Paleontology Meeting 7:30 PM - Topic: "Brag Night!" This meeting will be hybrid with both Zoom and in person available at the College of DuPage Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map). Zoom link
Sun, Sep 17th	ESCONI Field Trip to Braceville, IL for Mazon Creek  Fossils. ***Trip Full*** Details are here.
Sat, Sep 23rd	ESCONI Field Trip to Danville, IL for Pennsylvanian Fossils.  ***Trip Full*** Details are here.

 

Giant Cave of Prehistoric Art Has Been Hidden Since The Stone Age #art #paleontology #archaeology #cave #caveart

This partly flooded chamber contains most of the motifs. (A Ruiz-Redondo/V Barciela/X Mart)

Science Alert has a story about the discovery of cave art in Spain.  The art is dated to about 24,000 years old.  It was found on the walls of a cave at the Cova Dones site near Spain's Mediterranean coast.  The cave has been known by locals for many years, but the art was somehow overlooked.  There are pictures of at least 19 wild animals. The paintings were studied by researchers from the University of Zaragoza and University of Alicante in Spain.  The research was published in the journal Antiquity.

Located at a site called Cova Dones near Spain's Mediterranean coast, the cave holds a wealth of well-preserved rock art made by humans more than 24,000 years ago, the study's authors report, including at least 19 portrayals of wildlife.

In addition to several horses and red deer (plus a pair of unidentified animals), the researchers found two depictions of aurochs – an extinct bovine species believed to be the ancestor of modern cattle.

"When we saw the first painted auroch, we immediately acknowledged it was important," says study co-author Aitor Ruiz-Redondo, senior lecturer of prehistory at the University of Zaragoza in Spain and research affiliate at the University of Southampton in the U.K.

 

Fish’s big mistake preserved an unusual fossil for us #fossil #paleontology #fish #ammonite #germany

The fish in question, with the ammonite located just below its spine.

Ars Technica has a story about an interesting fish fossil.  A fossil fish, Pachycormus macropterus, from Germany shows that even fish sometimes bite off more than they can eat...  This particular fish fossil has a fossilized ammonite in its belly.  The fossil was found in the Fischer Quarry in Zell unter Aichelberg, Germany and dates to the Jurassic Period, more than 170 million years ago.  See more detail in a paper published in the journal Gelological Magazine.

“This work is part of a larger project studying the evolution and palaeoecology of fishes from the Early Jurassic of Germany,” Maxwell explained. “We were interested in looking at stomach contents in these fishes in order to understand where they fit in the Early Jurassic food web and whether different fishes living in the same environment during the Early Jurassic had similar diets.”

That inquiry brought them directly to this fossil.

Maxwell said that it “fossilized in a very particular way, retaining a lot of the original mother-of-pearl shine of the shell material. This is very unusual for fossils from this locality and is likely a function of the shell being protected from the external environment inside the body of the fish. This can help us to assess whether a shell is truly preserved in an animal’s stomach in future finds.”

Fossil Friday #178: Reticulopteris munsterii #fossil #paleontology #FossilFriday #MazonCreek #fern #seedfern

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #179.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected].  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

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We have a Pit 3 Reticulopteris munsterii for your enjoyment today.   This concretion was collected last year.  It opened this summer after a few months in freeze/thaw. R. munsterii is uncommon in the Mazon Creek fossil deposit,

R. munsterii is a seed fern, which is an extinct group of fern-like plant, which produces seeds for reproduction.  The group went extinct during the Cretaceous mass extinction. R. munsterii was described by Walter A, Bell in 1938 from material found in the coal fields of Nova Scotia. Bell was a Canadian paleontologist and geologist.  He wrote many papers during his career, mostly about the Carboniferous stratigraphy, paleobotany, and paleontology of Atlantic Canada.  

Throwback Thursday #180: Field Museum Photo Archives #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday #FieldMuseum @FieldMuseum

This is Throwback Thursday #180.  In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general.  If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected].  Thanks!

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More photos from the Field Museum Photo Archive on Tumblr.   This time views in/of/from the museum back in the day...

Here is a great photo of the Museum Campus in 1926. No Shedd Aquarium or Adler Planetarium yet. Look at how tiny Soldier Field is.

© The Field Museum, GN82988, Photographer Kauffman and Fabray Company.

Field Museum exterior aerial view showing Soldier Field nearly complete. Shedd Aquarium building not built yet.

8x10 negative

1926

Here is an aerial view of the museum back in 1938. This was before we filled in the lightwells to make more space for exhibitions and collections.

© The Field Museum, GN78428.

Aerial view of Field Museum with Soldier Field in the foreground.

8x10 negative

1/13/1938 

Here is a really fun photo from the roof of the museum. The Skyline looks awfully short.

© The Field Museum, GN79261.

North parking lot, cars, Grant Park bandshell, Chicago downtown skyline.

1957

A little boy making faces at Bushman, a famous gorilla from Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. When he passed away in 1951 he went to the Field Museum.

Bushman is still on display on the ground floor of the museum.

© The Field Museum, GN79754, Photographer John Bayalis.

Children girl and boy, holding hands and standing in front of case and making faces at Bushman, the Gorilla.

4x5 negative

1963

Two beautiful marble lions watch as visitors pass by.

© The Field Museum, GN79868.

Chinese Marble Lion statue lion figures [sculpture].

8x10 negative

4/1/1964 

Sorry about the lack of posts the past two days, sadly the doors of the museum are frozen shut and we just can’t get to the negatives. Just Kidding. But it is far too cold to venture out. Hope you are all staying warm.

© The Field Museum CSB34764

Bird in the snow, Field Columbian Museum building south exterior in distance. Jackson Park, Chicago. 1912.

5x7 inch glass negative
1912.

Earth's biggest cache of pink diamonds formed in the breakup of the 1st supercontinent 'Nuna' #gem #gems #geology #diamond #supercontinent #platetectonics #tectonics

(Image credit: Murray Rayner)

Live Science has a post about Australian diamonds.   Western Australia is the source of 90% of the worlds pink diamonds.  They are found in the Argyle formation, which formed about 1.3 billion (yes, billion) years ago.  A paper in the journal Nature details the origin of these diamonds.  While other diamonds derive their color from impurities, the color in pink diamonds comes from deformation of the crystal structure.

Now, new research suggests that the strange color and strange geology likely come from a similar origin, the plate tectonics of the planet some 1.3 billion years ago. Recent studies from other researchers suggest that these large-scale continental movements are important for bringing diamonds of other colors to the surface, as well.

"The breakup of these continents are fundamental at getting these diamonds up from these deep depths," said Hugo Olierook, a research fellow at Curtin University in Australia and lead author of the new study on the origin of the pink diamonds, published today (Sept. 19) in the journal Nature.

Pink diamonds are different from blue or yellow diamonds, which get their color from impurities like nitrogen and boron. In contrast, pink diamonds are colorful only because their crystalline structure has been bent. The Argyle also hosts a lot of brown diamonds, which get their color from an even greater deformation of the crystal structure.

 

"Pinks are, say, a small push, if you like," Olierook told Live Science."You push a little bit too hard and they turn brown."

Long-Standing Question Answered – How Mass Extinction Paved the Way for Oysters and Clams #fossil #paleontology #paleozoic #clam #brachiopod #statistics #evolution

Researchers used Bayesian analysis to study the brachiopods’ decline and bivalves’ rise post-end-Permian extinction, finding bivalves better adapted to changing conditions. Left, Devonian brachiopod fossils from Ohio, USA. Right, recent bivalve shells from Shell Beach, Western Australia. Credit: (Wikimedia Commons; Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication) for image on the left. Image on right by Zhong-Qiang Chen.

SciTechDaily has a piece about the rise of the mollusks over the brachiopods after the Permian Mass Extinction.  Scientists have long wondered why bivalve species like clams and oysters replaced the brachiopods about 250 million years ago.  During the Paleozoic, brachiopods dominated the sea floor, but they are now just a small part of the ecosystem.  What happened?  New research conducted by paleontologists in Bristol, UK and Wuhan, China used Bayesian analysis to understand why.  The details can be found in a new paper in the journal Nature Communications.

“We wanted to explore the interactions between brachiopods and bivalves through their long history and especially around the Permian-Triassic handover period,” said Joe Flannery-Sutherland, a collaborator. “So we decided to use a computational method called Bayesian analysis to calculate rates of origination, extinction, and fossil preservation, as well as testing whether the brachiopods and bivalves interacted with each other. For example, did the rise of bivalves cause the decline of brachiopods?”

“We found that in fact, both groups shared similar trends in diversification dynamics right through the crisis time,” said Professor Michael Benton from Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences. “This means that they weren’t really competing or preying on each other, but more probably both responding to similar external drivers such as sea temperature and short-lived crises. But the bivalves eventually prevailed and the brachiopods retreated to deeper waters, where they still occur, but in reduced numbers.”

Mazon Monday #182: Braceville Fall 2023 Report #fossil #paleontology #fieldtrip #Braceville #Pennsylvanian #MazonCreek #MazonMonday

This is Mazon Monday post #182.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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The Fall 2023 Braceville Field Trip is in the books... is is that on the web?   It was a enjoyable, but somewhat wet, weekend.  We had rain at the very end of the day on Saturday and most of Sunday.  The mud was not too bad.  The dry conditions this late summer probably left the shale in a state where it could soak up a good bit of the water.

We had visitors from out of state both days.  Alan Keith was very generous and passed out fossils from Texas and Oklahoma.  The fossil dump was as good as ever.  We had quite a few buckets on both days.  Unfortunately, not as many people stuck around until 11:30 on Sunday, as we had a steady rain for most of the morning.   Material was supplied by Ralph Jewell, Andrew Young, Rich Holm, Alan Keith, and others.  Thank you for your contributions!

Good morning!

Here is a little introductory video on the walk in on Sunday morning.  It rained quite a bit Saturday night, so the shale was sticky in places.  Mazon Monday #130 looked at the history of the Braceville spoil pile.  The old timers called it "Worm Hill".

Fossil Dump on Saturday

Good luck horseshoe found by Chris Berg.

Huntin' for fossils!

Smiles from the pile!

Mud!

Poison ivy!

Steam from the hill when the sun came out on Sunday afternoon

Open fossils found!

Say goodbye to another successful field trip!

Bees likely evolved from ancient supercontinent, earlier than suspected #fossil #paleontology #insect #bees #bee #evolution

Photos of bees made using the team's imaging system. Credit: Silas Bossert lab/WSU

Phys.org has a story about the evolution of bees.  A study in the journal Current Biology shows that bees are tens of years older than previously thought. The researchers looked at DNA from more than 200 species combined that with traits from 185 different bee fossils to develop an evolutionary history and genealogical models for historical bee distribution.

In what may be the broadest genomic study of bees to date, they analyzed hundreds to thousands of genes at a time to make sure that the relationships they inferred were correct.

"This is the first time we have broad genome-scale data for all seven bee families," said co-author Elizabeth Murray, a WSU assistant professor of entomology.

Previous research established that the first bees likely evolved from wasps, transitioning from predators to collectors of nectar and pollen. This study shows they arose in arid regions of western Gondwana during the early Cretaceous period.

"For the first time, we have statistical evidence that bees originated on Gondwana," Bossert said. "We now know that bees are originally southern hemisphere insects."

PBS Eons: That Time The Ocean Lost (Almost) All Its Oxygen #fossil #paleontology #evolution #ocean #cretaceous #extinction

PBS Eons has a new episode on Youtube.  This one is about an extinction event during the Cretaceous Period and what it did to the oceans.

This is the story of how our planet rescued itself from extreme conditions in the Cretaceous Period, at the cost of essentially suffocating the oceans for half-a-million years.

 

Fossil Friday #178: Radicites #fossil #paleontology #FossilFriday #MazonCreek #roots

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #178.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected].  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

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We have something different from Mazon Creek for this week's fossil.  This fossil is a beautiful specimen of Radicites. The classification is somewhat problematic and is believed to be plant roots.  The field of Paleobotany uses a system of classification known as "form genus".  Where each part of the plant is assigned genus and species names.  This system is used because it's usually not clear which plant part belongs to which parent plant.

This stunning fossil belongs to ESCONI member and Club Publicist Chris Berg.  Thanks for sharing, Chris!

Throwback Thursday #179: Braceville Field Trip Photos 2016 #fossil #paleontology #MazonCreek #Braceville #coalmine #spoilpile #fieldtrip #pennsylvanian

This is Throwback Thursday #179.  In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general.  If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected].  Thanks!

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Here are photos from the ESCONI Braceville Field Trip in May 2016. By the looks of it, the weather was great.

The pile...

This trip featured the first fossil dump, which has become a tradition at Braceville trips.

Checking out a Tully from Pit 11.

Lots of smiles!

Serious collecting!

265-million-year-old fossil reveals oldest, largest predator in South America, long before the rise of dinosaurs #fossil #paleontology #southamerica #brazil #permian #mammal

Artistic reconstruction of Pampaphoneus biccai. Credit: Original artwork by Márcio Castro

Phys.org has a story about a new Permian fossil from Brazil. Pampaphoneus biccai lived about 265 million years ago, during the Permian Period, around what is now São Gabriel in Southern Brazil.  It was a dinocephalian, which are related to early mammals.  This specimen is the first found in South America.  Previously, they were only known from deposits in South Africa and Russia.  The details can be found in a paper published in the journal Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society,

"The fossil was found in middle Permian rocks, in an area where bones are not so common, but always hold pleasant surprises," said lead author Mateus A. Costa Santos, a graduate student in the Paleontology Laboratory at the Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA). "Finding a new Pampaphoneus skull after so long was extremely important for increasing our knowledge about the animal, which was previously difficult to differentiate from its Russian relatives."

Paleontologists from UNIPAMPA and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) collected the fossil over one month of daily, backbreaking fieldwork.

Due to the pandemic, it took an additional three years for the fossil to be cleaned and thoroughly studied. Co-author Professor Stephanie E. Pierce, in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and Mammalogy in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, participated in the study of the animal as part of her current work with senior author and head of lab Professor Felipe Pinheiro, UNIPAMPA, on the Permo-Triassic fossil record of Brazil.

Man Uses Strange Rock as Doorstop For Decades. It Turned Out to Be Worth a Fortune #meteorite #rock #michigan #space #spacerock

ScienceAlert has a story of an unexpected valuable find.  A farmer in Michigan didn't realize that his 22 pound (10 kilogram) doorstop was a rare meteorite.  Back in 2018, David Mazurek of Grand Rapids, Michigan asked Mona Sirbescu, a geologist at Central Michigan University (CMU), about the rock he'd found about 30 years ago...

How the meteorite came into Mazurek's possession is a story in itself.

According to Sirbescu, when Mazurek bought a farm in Edmore, Michigan in 1988, he was shown around the property by the previous owner, and saw a large, strange-looking rock being used to prop open a shed door.

When Mazurek asked the outgoing owner about the rock, he was told the doorstop was actually a meteorite.

The man went on to say that in the 1930s he and his father had seen the meteorite shoot down at night onto their property, "and it made a heck of a noise when it hit".

The next morning, the pair found the crater left by the object, and dug the meteorite out of the newly formed ditch. It was still warm, they said.

The craziest bit? The man told Mazurek that, since the meteorite wasa part of the property, it would now belong to him.

And so Mazurek kept the space rock for 30 years, and continued using it as a doorstop – except for the occasions when his kids took the rock to school for show and tell.

 

Mazon Monday #181: Mariopteris nervosa #fossil #paleontology #seedfern #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #pennsylvanian #illinois

This is Mazon Monday post #181.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Mariopteris nervosa is the most common species of Mariopteris found in the Mazon Creek fossil biota.  It was named by Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart in 1879.  He was a French botanist, who is widely considered the father of Paleobotany.  He lived from 1801 until 1876.  Some of his works were published posthumously in the early 1880's.  He was a prolific writer of books and memoirs and is most known for Histoire des végétaux fossiles ("History of fossil plants").

M. nervosa can be found on page 160 of Jack Wittry's "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek".

Mariopteris nervosa (Brongniart) Zeiller, 1879

1834. Pecopteris nervosa Brongniart: p. 297, pl. 95, fig. 1; pl. 94 = Mariopteris nervosa var. oblongata
1879-80. Pseudopecopteris nervosa Brongniart; Lesquereux: p. 197, pl. 34, figs. 1-3
1925. Mariopteris nervosa Brongniart; Kidston: p. 601, pl. 138, figs. 3, 4; pl. 140, fig. 1; pl. 143, figs. 1, 2; pl. 144, figs. 4-6
1925. Mariopteris muricata var. nervosa (non Brongniart); Noé: pl. 16, figs. 1, 5 (fig. 1 re-figured here as Fig. 2)
1925. Mariopteris muricata Brongniart; Noé: pl. 16, figs. 2, 3
1958. Mariopteris nervosa Brongniart; Langford: p. 257, figs. 466-468
1972. Mariopteris nervosa (Brongniart) Zeiller; Boersma: p. 94, pl. 9, figs. 20, 21
1979. Mariopteris nervosa Brongniart; Janssen: p. 122, fig. 100
1979. Mariopteris muricata; Janssen: (non text) fig. 101

DESCRIPTION: The ultimate pinnae are linear-lanceolate, alternate, and oblique to their rachises. They appear slightly asymmetrical, with the pinnules on the lower side being slightly larger. The pinnules are oblique, confluent at the base, and subtriangular. The sides are convex or straight, and decurrent at the base. Pinnules are rounded at the apex when mature. They become more acute in the small, distal pinnules. The lower basal pinnule displays a prominent lobe on the basiscopic side; most pinnules are entire. The midvein is straight in the lower pinnules. Toward the pinna apex, the midvein becomes progressively more decurrent. The lateral veins are straight, generally immersed and hidden, occasionally inflated, acute to the midvein, and fork once near the base, with the lower-positioned ones often forking again.

REMARKS: Mariopteris nervosa is rare, although the most common Mariopteris in the Mazon Creek flora. The name implies that the veins should appear inflated. This is seldom the case, though they always appear clearly visible.

The "ESCONI Keys to Mazon Creek Plants" has a page describing Mariopteris nervosa and Mariopteris muricata, which was classified as a separate species at the time.

MARIOPTERIS

The fronds are lateral and spirally arranged on a naked primary rachis. The pinnules are large and triangular in form and are prominent, robust, unflattened and leathery. The midvein and veins branching from it are well marked, not systematically as in Pecopteris nor close as in Alethopteris. The base of the pinnule is directly and broadly attached to the rachis. An important characteristic is one or more veins entering the lower base, independent of and below the midvein, direct from the rachis.

Mariopteris nervosa

The rachis is marked with fine parallel lines running its length. The pinnules are triangular to ovate, with smooth margins. The pinnules are oblique to and alternating on the rachis. They are large, 1.5 times as long as wide, and appear leathery and thick. The midvein is prominent, and lateral veins curve out from the midvein and fork, curving back toward the margin. The basal pinnule is often bi- or trilobed.

Mariopteris muricata

M. muricata is similar to M. nervosa. The dentate margins of the pinnules are the primary difference. The venation is less pronounced but also similar. On the lower half of the pinnule, below the midvein, the veins may arise directly from the rachis. The general shape of the pinnule is more triangular than M. nervosa. The pinnules are alternate on the rachis.

Specimens

Field Museum

George's Basement

"A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek"

 

Precious Stone - Last Joliet-Lemont Limestone Quarry Closing #quarry #fossil #paleontology #rocks #flagstone #joliet #limestone #silurian #joliet-Lemont #SugarRunDolomite #dolomite

“I know everybody that knows everything about the stone business,” says quarry owner Larry Bromberek. “There’s nobody that’s gonna do what I do.”

Chicago Magazine has an article about the closing of the last quarry supplying the famous Joliet-Lemont limestone.  Located in Joliet, Bromberek Flagstone has been in business since the 1940's. ESCONI has visited for a few field trips over the years.   Now, it's closing as Larry Bromberek has sold his property.  Back in July when this article was published, he's was selling his remaining quarried rock... we are not sure if there is any left.

Walking over to another section of the quarry, I notice newly revealed stone, angular and gleaming. Limestone chunks of varying sizes are neatly stacked beside other kinds of stone brought from quarries around the nation. Bromberek imports quartzite, bluestone, porphyry, and sandstone to Joliet, but limestone dominates the scenery. Gesturing at a long stretch of unquarried rock resembling uncooked tofu, he points out the thin layers of long-dried clay in between. A Caterpillar track loader pulls it up, its bucket’s teeth biting into the rock, busting the clay and bringing up the stone in thicknesses of one inch, two inches, three, or more. Limestone is fickle. “It comes up naturally the way it wants to come up,” Bromberek explains.

Limestone is a sedimentary rock made from the remains of ancient sea life — corals, shells, and bones resting at the bottom of long-gone oceans —  that are eventually compressed into the material we know and love. That means the quarry doubles as a geologic museum. “We find fossils and stuff,” Bromberek says. “Trilobites, cephalopods, coral, and stuff like that.” The company’s website offers loose limestone at 14 cents a pound or $280 a ton, and includes this guarantee: “Every stone, no matter the size, thickness, or if it contains a rare fossil, is the exact same price per pound.” No major finds, à la Sue the T. rex, of course, though the occasional rock hound has shown up and left with some stony souvenir.

To read more about Joliet-Lemont limestone, see "What Do You Know About Joliet-Lemont Limestone?" by Joe Kubal.

 

 

Field Museum Fossil ID Day 2023 - September 9th, 2023 #fossil #paleontology #id #fieldmuseum @FieldMuseum @SUETheTrex

The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago is holding Fossil ID Day 2023 on Saturday, September 9th, 2023.

Found a rock that looks like a dinosaur fossil? Snapped a photo of a bird you don’t recognize? Our scientists will examine your object and give you their best identification during our annual ID Day! Members of the public can bring in remnants of the natural world—including clean, dry bones, fossils, rocks, meteorites, seashells, artifacts, and photographs of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects—to be identified by the Field’s scientists.

Please leave anything that’s alive (or was recently) at home.

Nothing to bring in? We'll have specimens from the museum’s collections on view.

Illinois residents enjoy free Basic admission on ID Day.

Fossil Friday #177: Euproops danae #fossil #paleontology #horseshoecrab #crab #FossilFriday #MazonCreek #pennsylvanian

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #177.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected].  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

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Today's fossil is a very nice horseshoe crab from the Mazon River.  The owner of this beauty is Lil Magnussen.   Lil is a long time ESCONI member, who rarely misses our Braceville field trips.  She's been collecting Mazon Creek fossils since the 1960's!

Euproops danae was described by Fielding Bradford Meek in 1867.  Meek was an American geologist and paleontologist who specialized in invertebrates.  E. danae  was highlighted in Mazon Monday #21. 

Thanks for the contribution, Lil!

Throwback Thursday #178: Looking Back At ESCONI for September 2023 #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday

This is Throwback Thursday #178.  In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general.  If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected].  Thanks!

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We had to take a break for the summer as there wasn't much happening in ESCONI history during the summer months.

From Brag Night September 1961

25 Years Ago - September 1998

• The General Meeting's topic was "Some Insights Into the Moundbuilders of Cahokia".  The presentation was by Dr. John Hobgood a professor of Anthropology at Chicago State University.
• There was a field trip to the Cave In Rock region of Illinois for the Labor Day Weekend.
• Karen Nordquists' "Dino News" had some hot news about birds and dinosaurs.  Some amazing fossils were coming out of China.
• The Paleontology Study Group was having their annual "Brag Night".
• Minerology was discussing minerals of Arkansas.

50 Years Ago - September 1973

• Jim and Sylvia Konecny announced they were moving to Prescott, AZ.
• The Labor Day Weekend Field Trip was to Windsor, Ontario.
• The General Meeting and all the study groups were holding "Brag Nights".
• Dr. Stuart Striever was presented with an honorary membership.  He was a long time member and a professor of archaeology.
• Bill Kelly wrote about his trip to Lida in Nevada.  The trip was in 1910!  He met his uncle Captain "Yellowstone" Kelly.
• The newsletter republished a Sun Times article about Dave Douglass and his "Dave's Down To Earth Rock Shop" in Evanston, IL.  Dave is a long time ESCONI member and his shop is still open!

70 Years Ago - September 1953

• ESCONI had 281 member in September 1953.
• There were three presentations at the General Meeting.  Roy Beghtol presented "Ramblings from Michigan, Ohio, Arkansas, and Missouri".  Howard Knight discussed "South, West, and Southwest of Chicago".  And, George Malott talked about "The Big Dig at Thorton".
• "Night School" started with classes on Geology, Mineralogy, and Jewelry Making.  Classes were held at Downers Grover High School.  See Throwback Thursday #144 for more information.
• There was a field trip to Crown Point, Indiana to collect fossils.
• Otho Hagernan wrote about collecting Keokuk Geodes. People have been collecting geodes there since at least the mid 1800's.

ESCONI September 2023 General Meeting - Friday, September 8th, 2023 at 8:00 PM via Zoom - "Tropical rainforests - A 300-million-year-old history” #paleontology #fossil #evolution #paleobotany #plants #MazonCreek

The September 2023 General Meeting will be held on Friday, September 8th, 2023 at 8:00 PM via Zoom.  Our speaker is Fabiany Herrera, who is the Assistant Curator of Paleobotany at the Field Museum.  Mazon Monday #178 was about a recent paper by Fabiany.

Approximately eighty plant taxa have been recognized from the Mazon Creek Lagerstätte, but few have been studied in detail, and in some cases the systematic affinities of these fossils need reevaluation. The three-dimensional (3D) preservation of Mazon Creek fossil plants makes them ideal candidates for study using x-ray micro-computed tomography (CT). The new research by Dr. Herrera and colleagues show that CT can provide excellent detail on the three-dimensional structure of Mazon Creek plant fossils. Dr. Herrera will also talk about The Early Cretaceous (~145–100 Ma) and early Cenozoic floras from northern South America and will show how the impact of the end-Cretaceous extinction shaped the evolutionary history of the tropical rainforests. 

Topic: ESCONI General Meeting "Tropical rainforests - A 300-million-year-old history"

Time: Sep 8, 2023 08:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

 

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Fossil of Tiny, Extinct Whale Discovered in Egypt, Named for King Tut #fossil #paleontology #whale #egypt #evolution

Egyptian paleontologists Abdullah Gohar, Mohamed Sameh and Hesham Sallam are part of the study team that discovered the fossil and identified the new species of basilosaurid whale. Hesham Sallam / Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center

Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the discovery of a new whale species.  The new whale, Tutcetus rayanensis, is named for the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.  It lived about 41 million years ago.  The team of Egyptian research discovered the fossil about 25 miles from the Wadi Al-Hitan World Heritage Site in Egypt, an area rich with whale specimens.  Details can be found in a recent paper in the journal Communications Biology.

It’s been a record-smashing month for ancient whales. Last week, scientists unveiled fossils of what could have been the heftiest animal to ever live, a prehistoric whale that clocked in at 400,000 pounds. And now, paleontologists have announced a groundbreaking find on the other end of the spectrum: a tiny, extinct whale that weighed only 410 pounds. The little creature grew just about eight feet long—or the size of a modern-day bottlenose dolphin.

“These findings together exemplify the remarkable diversity that characterized the Eocene marine ecosystems,” study author and paleontologist Hesham Sallam, a paleontologist at Mansoura University and the American University in Cairo, tells Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz.

ESCONI September 2023 Newsletter has been emailed out to all members

The ESCONI September 2023 Newsletter has been emailed out to all members. If you are a member and you did not receive the newsletter, please send an email to [email protected] and let us know.

 

”We Were Freaking Out” – Scientists Explore Dinosaur Coliseum #fossil #paleontology #alaska #dinosaur #alaska #footprints #trackways

The Coliseum site is viewed from above. The once-horizontal rocks are now nearly vertical, exposing many hundreds of tracks on flatirons of resistant rock. The dimples on the rock faces are dinosaur tracks. Credit: Photo by Patrick Druckenmiller

SciTechDaily has a story about the discovery of extensive dinosaur trackways in Alaska.  The trackways were found in Denali National Park and Preserve by researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  It is the largest documented single dinosaur track site in Alaska.  The area of the tracks spans the size of one and a half football fields and displays footprints from numerous dinosaur species.  The fossils date to about 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, when Alaska was much warmer than it is today.  The details were published in the journal Historical Biology.

At first glance, the site is unremarkable in the context of the park’s vast landscape: just a layered, rocky outcrop rising 20-some stories from its base.

“When our colleagues first visited the site, they saw a dinosaur trackway at the base of this massive cliff,” said Pat Druckenmiller, senior author of the paper and director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. “When we first went out there, we didn’t see much either.”

Stewart recalled being initially underwhelmed when he approached the site at the end of a seven-hour hike. Then dusk approached, and the team took another look.

Mazon Monday #180: Grundy County Historical Society Museum #fossil #paleontology #history #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #grundycounty #illinois

This is Mazon Monday post #180.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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The Grundy County Historical Society Museum is a hidden gem in Morris, IL.  Their mission is to house, preserve, and exhibit objects pertaining to Grundy County's history: cultural, social, geological, and anthropological.  Established in 1923, they had a centennial celebration on May 7th, 2023.  The building is located at 510 W Illinois Ave, in Morris, IL.

We stopped by the museum recently and had a nice discussion with the museum's curator, Debbie Steffes.  She's very knowledgeable and nimble with the microfilm reader.  Here, she is showing us the George Bedford display.  He was an amateur photographer.  His many photographs have helped document the history of Morris and the surrounding area during the early 1900's.  The boxes under her arm are some of his glass negatives.  He was also an early Mazon Creek fossil collector.

As Mazon Creek fossil enthusiasts, we were mostly interested in their fossil displays.  They have quite a few very nice specimens, including an absolutely gorgeous Annularia inflata with eight whorls!

An Asterophyllites equisetiformis with twelve whorls!

Who doesn't like Alethopteris?!?

Lycopodites meeki

Other Mazon Creek fossils on display.

This case contains fossils from ESCONI member Walter Lietz and his friend Wilbur "Wib" Louis.  There's also a small Tully Monster donated by Keith Holm.

They have a bucket of concretions from the garage of J.C. Carr, who is another early Mazon Creek fossil collector from the 1800's.

Jeremy Zimmerman and I in front of the Mastodon display.   By the way, there have been numerous Mastodons discovered in Grundy County and around Morris.

After you get a chance to visit the museum, wander on over to the Tully Monster Pub and Grill.  It's located just a few blocks away at 104 Liberty St.

 

Paleontology Is Far More Than New Fossil Discoveries #fossil #paleontology #dinosaur #evolution #science

The fossilized skeleton of a 230-million-year-old carnivorous dinosaur. Credit: Carl de Souza/AFP via Getty Images

Roy Plotnick has a nice piece about paleontology over on Scientific American.  Paleontology is much, much more than just old bones and fossils.  Its research provides an opportunity to understand the Earth both past, present, and future.  Roy is always an insightful writer.  It's good see him on a larger stage.

But the headlines over exciting new fossils, especially new dinosaurs, grossly underestimate the true importance of paleontology. Its real significance lies in how such discoveries illuminate the grand history of life on Earth. From its beginnings, more than three billion years ago, to the present day, fossils record how life adapted or perished in the face of major environmental challenges.

Just like the ones we face today. Knowing this history is critical to our response to just such challenges: climate change, ocean acidification, mass extinctions and other perils, mainly human-made, facing the biosphere and humanity. Alarmingly, the field is declining, just when we need it most.

PBS Eons: Did a Tsunami Swallow Part of Europe? #geology #europe #england #doggerland #tsunami

PBS Eons has a new video on Youtube.  This one is about the England...what happened to Doggerland?  What was it and how did it disappear?

What happened to the piece of prime prehistoric real estate known as Doggerland? While a massive megatsunami might have drowned it for good, the underlying reason that it now lies under the sea may have actually been the same thing that made it so great in the first place.

Fossil Friday #176: Aphlebia crispa #fossil #paleontology #MazonCreek #FossilFriday #illinois #aphlebia

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #176.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected].  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

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Fossil Friday has become a family affair as today's gorgeous Aphlebia crispa comes from Heath McDonald, who is the father of Caden McDonald who submitted last week's Calymene celebra.  Aphlebia is a strange leafy fossil that looks a little like lettuce.   It is very rare and this is a splendid example from the Mazon River in Morris, IL.

Thanks for the contribution, Heath!

Pre-cleaning

After cleaning, which really brings out the beauty of this rare specimen!

Throwback Thursday #177: The Rockhound's Creed #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday #poem #rock #rockhounds #rockhound

This is Throwback Thursday #177.  In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general.  If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected].  Thanks!

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We've featured the poems of Charles Schweitzer a few times in the past.  In Throwback Thursday #59, we looked at "The Rock Pile", TBT #73 was "The Rockhound's Wish", and TBT #98 was "The Rock I Threw Away".  All of these appear in his book of poems titled "Rhymes of the Rockhounds", which was published in the mid 1950's.

The Rockhound's Creed

HERE, take a lot of rocks," he said,
And all too gladly I was led
Where piles of rocks, a treasure store
Of agates, nodules, quartz and more
Were waiting for the cutter's wheel
To fashion them with felt and steel.
"So fill your sack, I like to start
Just such as you in the cutting art;
And think not I am overkind,
For there are many who you find
Will gladly share and gladly show
The tricks of trade that you should know.
One thing we pass on - don't forget,
The more you give, the more you get."

-- Charles Schweitzer --

Three-eyed distant relative of insects and crustaceans reveals details of early animal evolution #fossil #paleontology #arthropod #evolution #insect #crustacean

Artistic reconstruction of Kylinxia. Credit: X. Wang

Phys.org has a story about the evolution of insects and crustaceans.  Kylinxia zhangi is an early arthropod related to insects and crustaceans.  It lived about 520 million years ago during the Cambrian Period.     It was part of the famous Chengjiang fossil locality, which is located in the Yunnan Province in southern China.  A team which consisted of researchers from the University of Leicester, Yunnan Key Laboratory for Paleobiology and the Institute of Paleontology at Yunnan University, Chengjiang Fossil Museum, and the Natural History Museum in London, found that K. zhangi reveals clues to the evolution of the arthropod head.  The research was published in the journal Current Biology.

Although there are plenty of arthropods in the fossil record—most famously the trilobites—the vast majority only preserve their hard skeletons. Because the new Chinese material is preserved nearly complete, the team were able to image the head of Kylinxia, identifying six segments: the front one bearing eyes, the second with a pair of large grasping limbs, and the other four each bearing a pair of jointed limbs.

Lead author of the study Robert O'Flynn, a Ph.D. student at the University of Leicester School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, said, "The preservation of the fossil animal is amazing. After CT-scanning we can digitally turn it around and literally stare into the face of something that was alive over 500 million years ago. As we spun the animal around, we could see that its head possesses six segments, just as in many living arthropods."

Professor Mark Williams, Robert's primary supervisor at the University of Leicester, said, "Kylinxia, and the Chengjiang biota whence it came, are instrumental to building our understanding of early euarthropod evolution. I like to think that similar discoveries will continue to be made by Robert."

Inside The Ancient City Of Baiae, The Notorious Roman Party Town That Now Sits On The Ocean Floor #archaeology #history #romans

Diver swimming over a submerged mosaic.anbusiello TW/Alamy Stock Photo

allthatsinteresting.com has a story about the Roman city of Baiae.  Located about 150 miles south of Rome, it was a resort town for wealth Romans.  Much of it is under water now, but the ancient Roman relics preserved there give us clues to its hedonistic past.

The exact date of Baiae's construction is still a mystery. But by the 1st century B.C.E., the town had already become a popular destination for ancient Roman elites. Notable figures like Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Nero would all go on to own spectacular homes there.

Though many were attracted to the area's natural hot springs and balmy weather, Baiae also quickly gained a reputation as a place for bad behavior. In 56 B.C.E., a prominent socialite named Clodia was condemned during a court case for living as a "harlot" and seducer in the town.

Other ancient sources paint the resort as the ultimate "harbor of vice" where visitors would truly let themselves go wild.

Mazon Monday #179: Mr Tully's Tullys #fossil #paleontology #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #tully #tullymonster #tullymonstrum #illinois #statefossil

This is Mazon Monday post #179.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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The Tully Monster was designated Illinois' State Fossil in 1989.  Unfortunately, Francis Tully (yes!  an ESCONI member!) didn't live to see it as he died in 1987.  While much is still uncertain, we know quite a bit more about the animal today.

The following article appeared in the October 1989 issue of the newsletter. 

State fossil, prairie grass chosen

Springfield--

The "Tully Monster" became Illinois' official state fossil! This was just one day after the "Big Bluestem" became Illinois' official state prairie grass.

Governor James R. Thompson signed into law both the fossil bill, sponsored by Rep. Larry Wennlund, R-New Lenox, and the prairie grass bill, sponsored by Rep. Tom Ryder, Rerseyville.

The Tully Monster and Big Bluestem are the latest additions to official Illinois symbols, which include the oak, violet cardinal, fluorite, monarch butterfly, white tailed deer and bluegill. Several, including the oak, violet, cardinal and blue- gill, were elected by Illinois school children.

Wennlund said his bill simply declared the Tullimonstrum gregarium to be the official state fossil because it is unique and there would not have been any opposition in a school election.

Amateur collector Francis Tully found the first stone impressions of the 300 million year old sea animal in the late 1950's in the Will-Grundy-Kankakee county area. Wennlund said it was a foot long, and had a soft body and ate meat.

The Big Bluestem, one of several prairie grasses that made Illinois soil rich, was still growing to heights of eight feet in the early 1800's. It had a three-branched seed head that gave it a nickname of turkeyfoot grass.

The Big Bluestem won its designation by beating Indiangrass, Prairie Dropseed and Little Bluestem in a 4316 vote contest at 50 grade schools.

(NOTE: Francis Tully was an ESCONI member.)

Mr. Tully's Tullys... just a few of the many he found during his life.

Thanks go out to Ralph Jewell for some of the photos in this post.  The Tully Monster photos come from slides he obtained from Walter Leitz.  Walter and his wife Rita were a long time ESCONI collectors, who very generously contributed to The Mazon Creek Project, the science of Mazon Creek, and Mazon Creek fossil collecting in general.

 

The Oldest Plant-Eating Dinosaur Has Been Found in India #fossil #paleontology #dinosaur #india #jurassic

An area of the Thar Desert in India’s Rajasthan state where 167-million-year-old dicraeosaurid fossils were found.Credit...Krishna Kumar

The New York Times' Trilobite column has a story about a new dinosaur from India. The animal, called Tharosaurus indicus, is an early member of the dicraeosaurids, which are sauropods.  It lived about 167 million years ago during the Jurassic Period.  The fossils were discovered in the Thar Desert, located in the northwest of India.   The region contains part of the border between India and Pakistan.  T. indicus represents the earliest record of both dicraeosaurids and diplodocoids.  The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Dicraeosaurids like Tharosaurus indicus are part of a larger group called diplodocoid sauropods. These dinosaurs are characterized by their elongated bodies and necks. They are ubiquitous among fossil beds from the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous periods. The dicraeosaurids are distinguished by spikes on the back of their necks, and have been unearthed in Africa, the Americas and China. But no such fossils had been documented in India before, said Sunil Bajpai, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee and an author of the study. Earlier theories suggested that India was inhabited only by the predecessors of diplodocoids.

But Dr. Bajpai and other researchers wondered if there was more to the story. In 2018, the Geological Survey of India and IIT Roorkee began a collaboration aimed at systematically exploring and excavating fossils near Jaisalmer, a major city in the Thar Desert. Initial finds included now-extinct hybodont sharks and marine bony fish. Then in 2019, the excavation of dinosaur fossils got underway, yielding the eventual discovery of Tharosaurus indicus.

Fossils of Two New Abelisaurid Dinosaurs Uncovered in Morocco #fossil #paleontology #dinosaur #morocco #africa #cretaceous

Fossils have been found of several types of abelisaur showing the diversity of dinosaurs in Morocco at the end of the Cretaceous period. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

SciNews has a story about the discovery of a couple new dinosaurs in Morocco.  The abelisaurs lived around 66 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period.  The paper was published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

The two new dinosaur species lived approximately 66 million years ago and had short, bulldog snouts and very short arms.

They belonged to Abelisauridae, a family of carnivorous dinosaurs that were counterparts to the tyrannosaurs of the northern hemisphere.

One of the species was about 2.5 m (8 feet) long and is represented by a fossilized foot bone found near the town of Sidi Daoui.

The other, from nearby Sidi Chennane, measured around 5 m (15 feet) in length and is represented by a shin bone.

“What’s surprising here is that these are marine beds,” said University of Bath paleontologist Nick Longrich.

“It’s a shallow, tropical sea full of plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and sharks. It’s not exactly a place you’d expect to find a lot of dinosaurs. But we’re finding them.”