Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

ESCONI Events February 2016

Fri, Feb 12	ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "Perry Mastodon Site Revisted, Glen Ellyn Illinois” by Steve Moshier of Wheaton College
Sat, Feb 13	ESCONI Mineralogy Meeting - 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "Mineral Video"
Sat, Feb 20	ESCONI Paleontology Study Group Meeting, 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: To Be Announced
	ESCONI Archaeology Study Group Meeting, 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Open at this time, seeking a chair

Next on NOVA: "Himalayan Megaquake" January 27, 2016 at 9 PM

The next episode of PBS's Nova is "Himalayan Megaquake".  It starts airing on January 27, 2016 at 9 PM on PBS.  There's a preview on the web and like their other shows, full episodes should be available online.  Enjoy!

Program Description:

Dramatic eyewitness footage reveals the shocking quake that rocked Nepal in April 2015. Join scientists as they examine why this earthquake was so devastating, how the victims are rebuilding and whether another earthquake looms on the horizon.

Palaeocast Episode 57: Wealden Fossils

Front cover of English Wealden Fossils, a field guide to the fossils of this group, containing everything needed to know about the fossils of the Wealden including vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants. Darren Naish was involved with the chapter on crocodilians, and he also wrote the theropod chapter. Anyone interested in learning more about the fossils of this area should take a look.

Palaeocast has an interesting podcast about Cretaceous fossils in England.  There's an interview with Dr. Darren Naish, who has a great blog called Tetrapod Zoology and a podcast called tetzoo.

The Wealden Supergroup of southern England is known for it’s Cretaceous fossils, particularly of dinosaurs, but also crocodilians, pterosaurs, lizards, invertebrates, and plants. The group represents the Lower Cretaceous, and is well known for showing us the environment of this time period, which is not well-represented in many other places in the world. It has been essential in helping to understand this time. Large body fossils are known, but also small microvertebrate sites, and even footprints and foot casts.

Dr Darren Naish, a research associate at the University of Southampton and known for his blog Tetrapod Zoology has worked significantly with fossils from the Wealden Group, including dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles. In this episode, we talk about the importance of the Wealden Group, focusing on the large diversity of dinosaurs found here.

 

Next on NOVA: "Mystery Beneath the Ice" January 20, 2016 at 9 PM

The next episode of PBS's Nova is "Mystery Beneath the Ice".  It starts airing on January 20, 2016 at 9 PM on PBS.  There's a preview on the web and like their other shows, full episodes should be available online.  Enjoy!

Program Description:

Tiny, transparent, and threatened, krill are crucial to the Antarctic ecosystem and, maybe, to the future of all our oceans. The population of krill has crashed since the 1970s for reasons that continue to baffle the experts. A leading theory says that krill’s life cycle is driven by an internal body clock that responds to the waxing and waning of the Antarctic ice pack, and as climate change alters the timing of the ice pack, their life cycle is disrupted. To test it, NOVA travels on the Polarstern, a state-of-the-art research vessel, to a frigid seasonal continent twice the size of the U.S. From camps established on the ice, scientists dive beneath the surface in search of the ice caves that shelter juvenile krill during the winter. There, they hope to discover what’s causing the krill to vanish and, ultimately, how the shifting seasons caused by climate change could disrupt ecosystems around the world.

 

Behind a Shopping Center in New Jersey, Signs of a Mass Extinction

The New York Times has an interesting story about a unique fossil find in New Jersey.  While there is much evidence pointing to an impact event that ended the "Age of Dinosaurs" 66 million years ago, no one has found a fossil deposit from the exact event.  Behind a Lowe's home improvement store in southern New Jersey, Kenneth J. Lacovara thinks he has found just that.  Mr. Lacovara, a professor of paleontology and geology at nearby Rowan University calls the deposit a "mass death assemblage".  66 million years ago, this site was under water, 10 to 15 miles off the coast of a shallow sea.  About 40 feet below the surface of the quarry, researchers have found a layer filled with fossils of all types.  There's clams, oysters, turtles, crocodiles, and even mosasaur remains.

Kenneth J. Lacovara, a professor of paleontology and geology at nearby Rowan University, calls the layer a “mass death assemblage.” He believes it may be the only known collection of animal remains that dates from the mass extinction itself.

It’s just a hypothesis at the moment, and a tough one to prove. Dr. Lacovara and the university, which is to complete its purchase of the quarry this month, have deployed graduate students to meticulously catalog the fossils near in time to the mass extinction.

But they are not the only fossil hunters here.

Once a year for the past four years, the quarry has been opened to the public, and citizen paleontologists have come in droves — about 1,500 for the most recent community event last fall.

“I found a pile of rocks,” said Alexandra Hopper of Mantua, one of the participants. “When we rinse them off, we’re hoping some of them are fossils.” The diggers kept the fossils they found, and there are plenty to go around. The doomed creatures in the pit were mostly clams and oysters. But the fossils of animals like crocodiles and sea turtles are here, too, as well as the occasional mosasaur, a ferocious aquatic lizard with two long teeth at the back of its throat that pointed toward its gullet, ensuring that any prey it swallowed would never struggle out.

Fossils are being found throughout the sediment that fills the pit, but the assemblage occupies a single concentrated layer. Bones and shells sometimes pile up when currents sweep dead sea creatures toward a particular eddy, where they accumulate over years or centuries.

But here the skeletons of the larger creatures remain largely intact. That suggests they all died at the same time and then settled gently on the sea bottom.

The dating of the fossil layer puts their deaths tantalizingly close in time to the impact of a meteor off what is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Most paleontologists think that the climatic cataclysm that followed killed three-quarters of the species living on Earth — and all of the dinosaurs except those that evolved into birds.

A seeming paradox of mass extinctions is that scientists rarely find the remains of any of the billions of animals that died. All over the world, the bones of the last dinosaurs are almost always found well below the extinction layer, which is marked by iridium, an element concentrated in asteroids and comets.

For paleontologists, that is not a surprise, given the rare conditions needed to preserve fossils and the fact that world is not crammed with animals.

 

American Museum of Natural History: Trilobite of the Week 01/12/2016

The trilobite of the week from the American Museum of Natural History is Nanolichas parvus.  It's from the Upper Fezouata Formation of the lower Ordovician of Morocco.  This guy was found in the Dra Valley, new Zagora, Morrocco.  It measures about 6 cm.

Next on NOVA: "Life's Rocky Start" January 13, 2016 at 9 PM

The next episode of PBS's Nova is "Life's Rocky Start".  It starts airing on January 13, 2016 at 9 PM on PBS.  There's a preview on the web and like their other shows, full episodes should be available online.  Sounds like a good one, enjoy!

Program Description:

Four and a half billion years ago, the young Earth was a hellish place—a seething chaos of meteorite impacts, volcanoes belching noxious gases, and lightning flashing through a thin, torrid atmosphere. Then, in a process that has puzzled scientists for decades, life emerged. But how? NOVA joins mineralogist Robert Hazen as he journeys around the globe. From an ancient Moroccan market to the Australian Outback, he advances a startling and counterintuitive idea—that the rocks beneath our feet were not only essential to jump-starting life, but that microbial life helped give birth to hundreds of minerals we know and depend on today. It's a theory of the co-evolution of Earth and life that is reshaping the grand-narrative of our planet’s story.

 

 

ESCONI January Mineral Study Group Cancelled

The  ESCONI January Mineral Study Group meeting is canceled due to a winter weather storm advisory (3-6 inches of snow).  

 

We were planning to do a video.

 

2016 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show March 5th and March 6th

Location -

 

Saturday, March 5th - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, March 6th - 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Free admittance and parking !

Explore
your interests

Shop
for jewelry, gems, fossils, minerals from world-class vendors -

Rock Stars
Rib River
Exclusive Inspiration
Hell Creek Dinosaurs
Lavins Gems and Jewelry
Mineral Miner
KU Minerals

Find
unique and interesting books at the used book sale

Learn
from members of club demonstrating their hobbies and collections

Bid and buy
gems, minerals and fossils at the
Silent Auction
and Live Auctions
(photos of some items will be posted on website a week before show)

Enjoy
amazing displays from the
Field Museum & Lizzadro Museum

Win
an amazing earth-science related prize in the hourly raffle if your ticket chosen

AND MORE FOR KIDS ~

Receive
a FREE collection of minerals and fossils at the Junior Booth

Play
games and do crafts at the Kiddie Corner

Split
your own geode

Accomplish
some of the requirements for badges....
 Boy Scout Geology, Collections, or Archaeology Badge
 Girl Scout Jeweler Junior Craft Badge
4-H Science Project

 

Click here to see more photos of past ESCONI Shows

 

2016 ESCONI Show Flyer

 
Questions? Comments?

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Badger Rock Club 46th Annual Rock, Gem, Mineral & Fossil Show - Saturday, April 9th and Sunday, April 10th 2016

Badger Lapidary & Geological Society, 46^th Annual, Rock, Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Show.    

Dates: Saturday, April 9^th & Sunday, April 10^th 2016. 
Hours: 9-5 Sat, 9-4 Sun
Location: Monroe Senior High School, 1600 26^th St., Monroe, WI 53566. 
Description: Ten dealers, excellent speakers, many beautiful club displays, lapidary demonstrations, club sales table, hourly door prizes, and educational films. 
Activities for kids: Fishpond, spinner game, scavenger hunt, quarry quest, rock polishing, and roving rock wizard. 
Food: Full Menu.  
Free Show - Free-will donation and free parking.   
Show Contact: Deb Wehinger, 708 W 2nd Ave, Brodhead, WI  53520; [email protected]  
Website: www.badgerrockclub.org

 

ESCONI Events January 2016

Fri, Jan 8	ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "Mine Planning and Geologic Services” by Jill Downer of Vulcan Materials Corp.
Sat, Jan 9	ESCONI Mineralogy Meeting - Canceled!
Sat, Jan 16	ESCONI Paleontology Study Group Meeting, 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic:"Receptaculites (Sunflower Coral)" by Tom Williams
	ESCONI Archaeology Study Group Meeting, 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Open at this time, seeking a chair