Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

305-Million-Year-Old 'Almost Spider' Unlocks Arachnid History

A computed tomography image reveals the 305-million-year-old arachnid that is almost, but not quite, a spider.
Credit: Garwood et al 2016/Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

livescience has a story about an "Almost Spider".  The new animal, from France, was found locked in iron carbonate and hails from about 305 million years ago (Carboniferous Period).  It has been named Idmonarachne brasieri.  The name comes from the Greek mythological figure Idmon, father of Arachne, a weaver who was turned into a spider by a jealous goddess.

"It's not quite a spider, but it's very close to being one," said study researcher Russell Garwood, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. [See Images of the Fossilized 'Almost Spider']

Locked in rock

Arachnids are an ancient group with murky origins, Garwood told Live Science. The creatures were among the first land-dwellers, adopting a terrestrial life at least 420 million years ago. There are very few rocks laid down on land from that time, so little of arachnids' early history is preserved, Garwood said. And figuring out arachnid evolutionary relationships from DNA is likewise difficult because arachnids diversified so early, leaving few traceable evolutionary changes in their genes.

The oldest known spider fossil comes from the Montceau-les-Mines, a coal seam in eastern France. That spider was 305 million years old. The newfound fossil from the same time period reveals that these ancient spiders lived alongside not-quite-spider cousins. 

The 0.4-inch-long (10 millimeters) arachnid was discovered decades ago, but no one could make much of it, because the front half of the fossil is buried in rock. Computed tomography unlocked the mystery by allowing Garwood and his colleagues to peer inside the rock at the arachnid's walking legs and mouthparts, which are important for identifying the genus and species of this kind of creature.

 

Field Trip: Vulcan Materials Lisbon, IL Quarry April 30th, 2016

There will be an ESCONI field trip to the Vulcan Materials Lisbon Illinois quarry on Saturday, April 30, 2016. The trip starts at 9 AM and ends at 12 noon. The quarry is located at 10425 Joliet Road, Lisbon, IL. You may also see it with a Newark IL address.

You must be an ESCONI member as of April 16, 2016  to attend this trip. This trip is limited to 20 people. All attendees must be at least 18 years of age.

 

Please read the following rules carefully:

 

1. We will have site-specific training, and everyone will sign a waiver.

 

2. We will be collecting only in designated areas in material brought up for us.We are not allowed in the pit.

 

3. You must have the following safety gear: steel-toed boots, hard hat, safety glasses and safety vest. These must be worn at all times on the property.

 

4. No rock hammers, chisels, or large shovels. We can keep the fossils we find as long as they can be easily carried.

 

5. Photographs of the quarry or quarry facilities are not allowed. Photographs of fossils ARE allowed, and Vulcan management would like to have pictures of nice specimens.

 

6. Please review the ESCONI Code of Ethics and Conduct available on the website. These rules apply to field trips like this one.

 

7. The rock at this quarry is Ordovician, Platteville Group, including the Quimby's Mill, Nachusa, Grand Detour, Mifflin and Pecatonica formations.

 

I will distribute the waiver form by email before the day of the trip.

 

To sign up for this field trip, please send me (Dave) an email with the number of members attending. My email address is: [email protected]  No phone calls please. I will confirm via return email within 24 hours. If you do not hear back from me within that time, send it again!

 

Caveman's best friends? Preserved Ice Age puppies awe scientists

A scientist performs an autopsy of the remains of a puppy, which died 12,460 years ago and was discovered in Russia's northern Yakutia, at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk

Phys.org has a story about frozen ice age puppies found in Russia.  The puppies were found in Yakutia and date to 12,460 year before present.  The first puppy was found in 2011.  The second was found last year just a small distance away.

The hunters searching for mammoth tusks were drawn to the steep riverbank by a deposit of ancient bones. To their astonishment, they discovered an Ice Age puppy's snout peeking out from the permafrost.

Five years later, a pair of puppies perfectly preserved in Russia's far northeast region of Yakutia and dating back 12,460 years has mobilised scientists across the world.

"To find a carnivorous mammal intact with skin, fur and internal organs—this has never happened before in history," said Sergei Fyodorov, head of exhibitions at the Mammoth Museum of the North-Eastern Federal University in the regional capital of Yakutsk.

And the discovery could contribute to the lively scientific debate over the origin of domesticated dogs.

When the hunters stumbled on the first frozen pup in 2011, they alerted Fyodorov who immediately flew out to the remote Arctic tundra, about 4,700 kilometres (2,900 miles) from Moscow and only 130 kilometres from the Laptev Sea, which borders the Arctic Ocean.

Last year he returned for a more thorough look and found the second puppy close to the same spot, farther down the slope. Both had died when they were about three months old.

They most likely come from the same litter, said Fyodorov.

 

SSESC: Sunday, April 3, 2016 Annual Silent Auction, Park Forest, IL

This Sunday the South Suburban Earth Science Club is holding its 
Annual Silent Auction.  April 3, 2016. Time: 1:00 to 4:00.

Freedom Hall
410 Lakewood Blvd.
Park Forest, IL

Gemstones, Jewelry, Lapidary Supplies, Findings, Slabs, Rocks, 
Shells, Minerals, Fossils, Books, Magazines & more. Come early 
for the best buys.

Refreshments Served – Everyone Welcome – Free Admission

Attached is the flyer for more information.

Reminder: MAPS 2016 is April 1-3 2016

Here's a reminder for of the Mid-America Paleontology Society (MAPS) Expo.  It's on Friday, April 1st through Sunday April 3rd, 2016.  Generally known as the world's largest fossil-only show and this year is no different.  The theme is the Mezozoic Era.  All of the EXPOs are extraordinary affairs, but this one will be talked about for a long time.  The keynote speaker is Phil Currie.  You know, the famous Canadian dinosaur palaeontologist of the University of Alberta in Edmonton.  His wife, Eva Koppelhus, a palaeontologist and palynologist, will also be speaking at the EXPO.

There are opportunities to buy, sell, and swap fossils of all types.  Additionally, the list of events includes silent auctions, live auctions, children's activities, programs, and workshops.  As always, there will be fun and learning for the whole family. 

The show will be held in Iowa City, IA at Sharpless Auctions.  That's the same place as the last few years.  The show flyer has a map and directions.  Don't miss it!

Laelaps - Most Dinosaur Species Are Still Undiscovered

Visitors passing by the skeletons of dinosaurs in the Humboldt Museum fur Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. Photograph by VPC Photo, Alamy

 

Laelaps has an interesting post about the discovery of new dinosaur species over on the Phenomena blog at National Geographic.  We don't know how many different dinosaur species existed during the reign of non-avian dinosaurs from about 235 million years ago to the mass extinction some 65 million years ago.  New dinosaurs are being described all the time, at a rate of about one every 2 weeks.  The latest was a new tiny, tyrannosaur from Uzbekistan was introduced to the world last week.  If the the current estimates are correct, there are plenty more still in the ground waiting to be found.

Even then, most of what we know about dinosaurs comes from their skeletal remains. This lets us tell the difference between Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, but, like some modern birds and reptiles, some non-avian dinosaur species may have differed only in color, geographic range, or other squishy features that we just don’t have access to. Even if we had the bones of every single dinosaur, we’d still probably underestimate the true number of species.

Still, given these caveats, University of Oslo researchers Jostein Starrfelt and Lee Hsiang Liow have created a new model they call TRiPS to estimate how many dinosaur species were around during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous chapters of their history.

Drawing from known dinosaur records in the Paleobiology Database, the researchers extended the known record into estimations of origin and extinction for dinosaur species throughout their history and included a simulation of how likely it’d be for species to enter the fossil record.

In all, Starrfelt and Liow write, the heyday of the dinosaurs saw the comings and goings of about 1,936 different species. About half this count are expected to be theropods—the lineage that includes T. rex and birds—with the rest split between the long-necked sauropodomorphs and ornithischians such as the armored, horned, and duckbilled dinosaurs.

Starrfelt and Liow acknowledge that they’re dealing with estimates and that refinements will likely alter their dinosaur count. But, for a first run, the results came out similar to what’s been proposed before. In 2006 paleontologists Steve Wang and Peter Dodson estimated that around 1,844 genera of dinosaurs lived during the Mesozoic. While the categories are different—a genus can contain multiple species, like Triceratops horridus and Triceratops prorsus—many dinosaurs described so far are what paleontologists call monospecific, or have only one species in a genus. This affects estimates drawn from the known span of dinosaur discoveries, and might be why the species count isn’t even higher.

ESCONI Events April 2016

Fri, April 1-3	MAPS Expo 2016 - Sharpless Auction facility, Iowa City, Iowa (Map) - Theme: "The Mesozoic”, Phil Currie will be the keynote speaker!
Fri, April 8	ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "New Fossil Gymnosperms from Mongolia” by Fabiany Herrera of the Chicago Botanical Garden
Sat, April 9	ESCONI Mineral Study Group Meeting 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "The Tuscon Gem Show”
Sat, April 16	ESCONI Paleontology Study Group Meeting - 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "The Tully Monster"  by ESCONI member John Catalani
Sat, April 30	Field Trip - Vulcan Materials in Lisbon, IL, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. 10425 Joliet Road, Lisbon, IL. (Map)
	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

 

CBC Quirks & Quarks - Pregnant T rex!

Tyrannosaurs Rex fossil cast at the Royal Tyrell Museum (Pierre Camateros, cc-by-sa-3.0)

CBC Radio's Quicks & Quarks has a segment on the first pregnant Tyrannosaurus rex.  Dr. Mary Higby Schweitzer, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University, has confirmed that a 68 million year old T-rex, found in 2005, is, in fact, female and pregnant.  The paper appeared in Nature Scientific Reports.

She and her team found medullary bone tissue in the dinosaur's femur. Medullary bone is found in modern female birds that are in the process of preparing to lay eggs. It is distinct in both its chemical composition and molecular structure from other bone.

Because birds are the modern relatives of dinosaurs, scientists assume medullary bone served the same purpose in T-rex. They hope that this discovery will help determine the sex of other Tyrannosaur fossils.

In the same show, another segment has an interview with Dr. Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist from the School of Geosiences at the University of Edinburgh.  He discusses Timurlengia euotica, a new tyrannosaur species that lived about 90 million years ago in Uzbekistan.  The paper appeared in PNAS.

The new species - Timurlengia euotica - was as big as a horse, but the size and shape if its skull reveal that its brain and senses were already highly developed. It is believed that Timurlengia needed to become a smart predator with keen senses, before it could become the king of dinosaurs.

 

 

 

How Deep Is The Ocean

 

BuzzFeed has a cool video on YouTube that shows the depth of the ocean in nice relative steps.  Check it out... very interesting!

 

Palaeocast Episode 62: The Tully Monster

Palaeocast has a new episode on the Tully Monster!  Dave interviews the principal author on the Nature paper, that was published earlier this week.  There's quite a bit of information in the podcast.   The coverage on the this Tully Monster paper has been truly amazing.

Tullimonstrum gregarium, better known as the ‘Tully Monster’ is a problematic fossil from the Late Carboniferous Mazon Creek lagerstätte, Illinois, USA. The identity of this fossil has been the subject of much debate, due to its peculiar form. Several competing hypotheses have placed it within the arthropods, fish, worms or even molluscs.

Joining us in this interview is Dr Victoria McCoy whose work at Yale University (recently published in Nature) was able to demonstrate that the Tully Monster belonged to a different group entirely.

The "Tully Monster" is a vertebrate!

 

A new paper, co-authored by Paul Mayer of the Field Museum, in Nature sheds light on an age old mystery.  Tullymonstrum gregarium, commonly known as the Tully Monster, is the official state fossil of Illinois, designated in 1989.  It's a soft bodied animal found in the late Carboniferous Mazon Creek biota (approximately 309-307 million years ago) of Illinois, USA.  It's phylogenic position has been uncertain from the beginning.  It's been proposed to belong with nemerteans, polychaetes, gastropods, conodonts, and even arthropods.  After analysing more than 1200 specimens, this paper places T. gregarium among vertebrates, more specifically with the lampreys.

Not coincidentally, our September general meeting program will be by Paul Mayer of the Field Museum, speaking on this very subject!

Problematic fossils, extinct taxa of enigmatic morphology that cannot be assigned to a known major group, were once a major issue in palaeontology. A long-favoured solution to the ‘problem of the problematica’¹, particularly the ‘weird wonders’² of the Cambrian Burgess Shale, was to consider them representatives of extinct phyla. A combination of new evidence and modern approaches to phylogenetic analysis has now resolved the affinities of most of these forms. Perhaps the most notable exception is Tullimonstrum gregarium³, popularly known as the Tully monster, a large soft-bodied organism from the late Carboniferous Mazon Creek biota (approximately 309–307 million years ago) of Illinois, USA, which was designated the official state fossil of Illinois in 1989. Its phylogenetic position has remained uncertain and it has been compared with nemerteans^{4, 5}, polychaetes⁴, gastropods⁴, conodonts⁶, and the stem arthropod Opabinia⁴. Here we review the morphology of Tullimonstrum based on an analysis of more than 1,200 specimens. We find that the anterior proboscis ends in a buccal apparatus containing teeth, the eyes project laterally on a long rigid bar, and the elongate segmented body bears a caudal fin with dorsal and ventral lobes^{3, 4, 5, 6}. We describe new evidence for a notochord, cartilaginous arcualia, gill pouches, articulations within the proboscis, and multiple tooth rows adjacent to the mouth. This combination of characters, supported by phylogenetic analysis, identifiesTullimonstrum as a vertebrate, and places it on the stem lineage to lampreys (Petromyzontida). In addition to increasing the known morphological disparity of extinct lampreys^{7, 8, 9}, a chordate affinity for T. gregarium resolves the nature of a soft-bodied fossil which has been debated for more than 50 years.

 

Science: Most species that disappear today will leave no trace in the fossil record

The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, went extinct in 1936 and is known both from fossils and human documentation.  © The Lighthouse/Visuals Unlimited/Corbis

Science Magazine has an interesting article about a study co-authored by UIC professor (and ESCONI member) Roy Plotnick.   In it, he and his co-authors postulate that future paleontologists will have trouble following the progression of the current mass extinction, which is the sixth in Earth's history.  Here's a link to the paper.

Millions of years from now, paleontologists may dig into Earth and uncover fossils from our own time. They may, like scientists today, construct a chronology of what came before them, watching past species popping into—and later out of—existence. Today, humans are continually driving species to extinction—by one estimate, almost 500 vertebrate species have gone extinct in the past 100 years—but will those future scientists be able to tell? New research suggests that it might not be easy: Only a small proportion of these human-caused extinctions will leave behind a fossil trace—and the most threatened species are the ones least likely to be preserved for posterity.

The history of life on Earth is punctuated by what researchers call the “Big Five” mass extinctions, a group that includes the dinosaur-killing Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction and several other, even more severe, events. Many scientists now want to add a sixth: the one that humans are causing all over the globe today. But it’s hard to gauge just how severe the current extinction crisis is, compared with others in Earth’s sometimes tumultuous history. Modern extinctions are documented, sometimes in real time. But the Big Five are measured using only the fossil record, a history of those species that were buried and preserved by sediments over time.

That’s why Roy Plotnick, a paleontologist at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and lead author of the study, thinks about far-flung scenarios involving future paleontologists. “We really need to look at modern day extinctions as if they were in the fossil record already, in order to make a comparison,” he says. So he and his colleagues searched fossil databases for modern mammal species—both those threatened by extinction and those that aren’t—to see how many modern extinctions would be detectable by relying only on fossils.

MAPS 2016 is April 1-3 2016

The Mid-America Paleontology Society (MAPS) Expo is Friday, April 1st through Sunday April 3rd, 2016.  It's known as the world's largest fossil-only show and this year is no different.  The theme is the Mezozoic Era.  All of the EXPOs are extraordinary affairs, but this one will be talked about for a long time.  The keynote speaker is Phil Currie.  You know, the famous Canadian dinosaur palaeontologist of the University of Alberta in Edmonton.  His wife, Eva Koppelhus, a palaeontologist and palynologist, will also be speaking at the EXPO.

There are opportunities to buy, sell, and swap fossils of all types.  Additionally, the list of events includes silent auctions, live auctions, children's activities, programs, and workshops.  As always, there will be fun and learning for the whole family. 

The show will be held in Iowa City, IA at Sharpless Auctions.  That's the same place as the last few years.  The show flyer has a map and directions.  Don't miss it!

 

The Minerals of Missouri Online Exhibit

 

New online virtual museum on the minerals of Missouri.  The website can be found at http://www.virtualmuseumofgeology.com/.

Enjoy!

 

Fossil News Magazine Returns!

Between 1998 and 2010, the little magazine, Fossil News: The Journal of Avocational Paleontology, was published monthly for a diverse and enthusiastic base of international subscribers, including amateur and paraprofessional fossil collectors, fossil preparators and dealers, and paleontologists and other scientists, many of whom also contributed articles, photographs, art work, and fossil tips to the magazine.

After a long hiatus, Fossil News magazine returns this Spring under new editorship!

We’re convinced there’s never been a greater need for well-written, reliable, high-quality information for amateur and paraprofessional fossil enthusiasts – and that’s where Fossil News comes in. Each 52-56-page, full-color quarterly issue is chock full of national and international news from the world of vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, advice for amateur and paraprofessional fossil collectors, paleoart & fossil photography, original book reviews, updates on important issues in paleontology and related fields, and much more.

The Spring 2016 issue (on sale March 21) includes:

• a photo-essay on fossil radiolarians and other microfossils from a master photomicrographer
• an account of the discovery of the world’s first fossil ambergris in Italy
• a review/discussion of the Emmy-award-winning TV mini-series, Your Inner Fish
• a field trip report on bat (and other rare fossils) from the Green River Formation of Wyoming
• Dean Lomax’s exciting account of identifying a new species of ichthyosaur — in the storeroom of his hometown museum
• reviews of new books and literature
• and much more.

The “new” Fossil News will be available in print-only. That means we can offer our subscribers original material by knowledgeable writers and accomplished artists that they can’t simply find on the internet. Meanwhile, Fossil News will continue and expand partnerships with professionals, seasoned nonprofessionals, and casual collectors to make Fossil News both entertaining and useful as a source of information for the avocational paleontologist.

What to do with Fossil News:

• Subscribe!Annual subscriptions currently cost $48/year (domestic), and that price remains good through March 21. After that, subscriptions will increase to $50/year. Subscribers to Fossil News receive an automatic 10% discount off our already low display advertising rates. And classified ads are always free to subscribers.
• Advertise! For a paleoart, fossil, gem, mineral or other fossil-related business, it’s hard to imagine a more targeted group than Fossil Newssubscribers. They collect fossils, go to fossil shows, buy fossil-related merchandise, visit fossil quarries and parks, and use gem- and fossil-related equipment and supplies.... We keep our advertising rates low because it’s the right way to treat our colleagues.
• Write! Fossil Newsis always looking for articles, features on your favorite fossil, book reviews, field-trip reports, descriptions of your research, essays on questions that interest you. Contact us and tell us what you’d like to write – or pass this information on to your students, friends, and colleagues.
• Sell! If you have a store or museum shop, Fossil Newsis an eye-grabbing 52-56-page quarterly full of attractive, original content. To help you and your clients become acquainted with Fossil News, we’re making this special offer: We’ll send you copies of the Spring 2016 issue of Fossil News at our cost, with no markup, for you to resell. If you and your customers like them and you think they’ll sell in future, we’ll negotiate a price for subsequent issues that’s fair to both of us.

For complete subscription and discount information, please see http://fourcatspress.com/fossilnews -- or write us with any questions.

Wendell Ricketts

Editor & Publisher
Fossil News: The Journal of Avocational Paleontology

 

AMNH Trilobite of the Week - Placoparina sedgewickii

At the American Museum of Natural History, the trilobite of the week is Placoparina sedgewickii (McCoy, 1849).  It was alive during the Middle Ordovician.

 

Burpee Museum Paleofest 2016 "Women in Paleontology" March 11 - 13, 2016

Burpee Museum's Paleofest 2016 is this weekend, March 11th - 13th, 2016.  The topic is "Women in Paleontology".  The speaker list (with bios) is here.  There are some past ESCONI speakers, including Dr. Virginia Naples (who has given us a few interesting talks) and Constance Van Beek of the Field Museum.  She spoke to us about fossil preparation.  Dr. Mary Schweitzer, who made the ground breaking discovery of soft tissue preservation in fossilized dinosaur bones, will be there speaking about "A Pregnancy Test for Dinosaurs?!".  The keynote speaker and dinner presenter is Dr. Kristina Curry Rogers.  Her talk is entitled "From Madagascar to Microscopes: A Tiny Titanosaur Reveals Early Life History for a Sauropod Dinosaur".  

There's plenty of fun science for the whole family.  Don't miss it!

2016 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Pictures 4

More pictures from the show!

2016 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Pictures 3

More picture from day 1 of the show.  Come on out day 2 starts at 10 am!

2016 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Pictures 2

More pictures from the show.  Come on out day 2 starts at 10 am!