Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Do You Know Your Mineral Rights?

Via Geology.com

“MineralWeb.com has developed a rich resource library for citizen mineral owners who are looking for plain spoken intelligence about their mineral rights.” Quoted from a MineralWeb press release.

Student Finds 4-7000 Yr Spear While Gardening On Campus

Via Seattle Times:

University of Washington freshman Ellen Van Wyk was digging up rocks from a campus garden when she made her discovery a stone spear tip that archaeologists believe was fashioned some 4,000 to 7,000 years ago.

Students Discredit Theory

Alberta, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Three University of Alberta paleontology graduate students have confirmed an 85-year-old dinosaur find, discrediting a 1970s revision of the discovery.

What Good Is Scottish Macaulayite?

If it is on Mars... better chance of life...

Video of Active Underwater Volcano

From the NSF via Geology.com:

Deeper Plume Than Thought at Yellowstone

Hmmm...

ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2009) — The most detailed seismic images yet published of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano shows a plume of hot and molten rock rising at an angle from the northwest at a depth of at least 410 miles, contradicting claims that there is no deep plume, only shallow hot rock moving like slowly boiling soup.

More Gift Ideas

The Great Dinosaurs by Darren Naish.

and for kids... Indiana Jones Lost City Archaeological Treasure Dig

Join a Ning Site about Micromineral

You can join this Ning site about Microminerals. They are organizing an international micromineral swap.

How to Send Web Posts to Your Email

You can now sign up to have posts from this web site sent to your email with feedmyinbox.com

Field Trip: Chicago Academy of Sciences, Sat. 1/23/2009

The Chicago Academy of Sciences (CAS) and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum would like to offer a behind the scenes tour of its museum collections for ESCONI members as a thank you to members (Dianna, Elaine, Jack, Joan, Joe) who contributed their time this past year with an inventory of our paleontology collection.

The tour, given by Dawn Roberts, a geologist herself, and the Collections Manager, will focus on the Academy's natural history collection. The Collections Facility houses 11,000 specimens in the geology collection and 14,000 specimens in the the paleontology collection. The facility contains 250,000 objects in the total collection, including photos, artwork, a natural history collection, etc.

Parking is available in front and up and down Ravenswood Road, at 4001 North Ravensood Avenue, Suite 201, Chicago, IL. If parking in the adjacent neighborhood, check for "permit parking only" signs and parking meters. Several restaurants are nearby in case you are hungry after the tour.  

The tour is restricted to 12 people and you must reserve in advance. Any age is welcome, although the tour is not recommended for children under 10 years of age. 

Date:         Saturday, January 23, 2010, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00

Location:    Chicago Academy of Science Facility & Office, 4001 N. Ravenswood, Suite 201

To reserve your place on this field trip, please contact Joe Kubal, via phone (630) 983-6159 or e-mail [email protected].

Earth Science Gift Books

Some more ideas for gifts for the holiday season...

Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth by DK Publishing

Extreme Scientists: Exploring Nature's Mysteries from Perilous Places by Donna M. Jackson

Bodies from the Ice: Melting Glaciers and the Recovery of the Past by James M. Deem

The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins: An Illuminating History of Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, Artist and Lecturer by Barbara Kerley

And of course, ESCONI books, make a great gift too!

Musings on 60 Years Of ESCONI by Karen Nordquist

As I try to put together a slide show for the 60 year anniversary party, I marvel at what this club has been through over the years.  I myself have only been here for about the last ten years having found ESCONI late in my life unfortunately.  I seem to have missed the really great years when there was a larger membership with a very active bunch of people running all the groups including not just one Juniors group but several.  Those were the good old days.  I see that membership was over 600 back in the sixties.  What has happened today that has shrunk our club and not just our club but all the clubs?  There used to be a large number of very active clubs all over the Chicago area that were running shows and field trips every year.

Times are changing and people must be doing other things with their time rather than spending it outside looking for fossils or minerals or archaeological sites or making jewelry.  It’s true that it is becoming harder to do some of these things – quarries are becoming more restrictive and sites are harder to find, but it can be done.  But it is still fun to sort through these fossils and minerals and identify them and organize them and share them with others who are interested in them. 

Linked In Page for Archaeologists

The Society for Industrial Archeology has a LinkedIn page, for those of you who use LinkedIn.

Mineral - Micromount Meeting: Sat., 12/12, 7:30 p.m.

Mineral - Micromount Study Group Meeting, 7:30 pm, Saturday, 12/12, College of Dupage, Building K - Rm 131. Bring three minerals and four labels for the identification contest - fabulous prizes for all! John's Ice Cream will be served.

Gift Idea for Earth Science Person

 A new book, Over the Coasts: An Aerial View of Geology, by Michael Collier, may be just that present for the geolgist in your life (or for yourself!)

A Geologist's Lifetime Field List

What would you add to this geologist's lifetime field list?

Time to Think About Field Camps and Geo Trips

List of field camps from geology.com.

Building Stones of US Capital

Interesting description of building materials used in Washington D.C., including descriptions of the local geology from the USGS.

Educational Materials

Nice assortment of educational materials from the Mineral Information Institute.

And 100 Excellent Blogs for science teachers.

Man vs Machine Fossil Identification

Via University of Leicester:

...A new study pitting academic expertise against a computer in recreating a 425 million-year old jigsaw puzzle has discovered that there is no substitute for wisdom born out of experience.

The research tested the reliability of expert identification versus computer analysis in reconstructing fossils. The investigation, based on fossil teeth from extinct vertebrates, found that the most specialized experts provided the most reliable identifications...