Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Field Trip: Starved Rock Clay Products Quarry, Saturday, Sept 24, 2016

There will be a field trip to the Starved Rock Clay Pit on Saturday, September 24, 2016. The trip is organized by the Lincoln Orbit Earth Science Society (LOESS) of Springfield, but ESCONI members are welcome. The clay pit is located just south of Starved Rock State Park.

 

Other than the glacial overburden, everything at the clay pit is Pennsylvanian. From top down the layers are:

 

Mecca Quarry Shale - Black shale sporadically found in reclaimed areas.

Francis Creek Shale -  Mudstone from deltaic deposits

Colchester No. 2 coal

Underclay - paleosol where the plants that made up the coal were rooted

 

This location produces pyrite balls, pyritized wood, occasional vertebrate and invertebrate fossils in the black shake, and Mazon-like concretions. From my experience, the concretions do not split like typical Mazon concretions, but tend to degrade to flakes when subjected to freezing/thawing. The entry road is made with rock from the nearby Lone Star (Buzzi-Unicem) quarry (LaSalle Limestone and gray shale).

 

Rules:

 

1. Everyone in your party must be at least 18 years old and an ESCONI member (unless you're a member of LOESS) by September 17, 2016.

 

2. Meet at the McDonald's in Oglesby by 8:30 AM. The address is 115 N. Lewis Avenue, Oglesby, IL. It is just east of I-39 on the east side of town. Waivers will be distributed and signed there. We will then caravan to the clay pit.

 

3. Bring and wear a hard hat and safety vest. Boots are strongly recommended as this location can be very muddy. If you plan to hammer on rocks then bring and wear eye protection. This is a big place, and a wagon or cart can be helpful.

 

4. This is not a hard-rock quarry, and the walls are not high, but exercise caution near any wall. If it looks unstable, don't go near it. Stay away from any equipment or cables.

 

5. The commercial product here is clay removed from pits in the quarry floor. These pits accumulate water. You must not go in the pits or the water.  The mud in and around the pits can suck you in and not let go!

 

6. If the entry road is in bad shape or there has been recent rain, vehicle access may be limited. We'll find out when we get there.

 

7. Please review the ESCONI Code of Ethics and Conduct on the website. It applies to field trips like this one.

 

With all the pyrite at this site you might think there is quite a bit of sulfur - and you'd be right! You'll get used to the smell...

 

Sign up by sending me (Dave) an email at fossil54@att.net giving the number of ESCONI members attending and their names. I will confirm by return email within 24 hours. If you don't hear from me in that time, send it again!

 

 

A Fossil Freak Show – On the Rocks

The On The Rocks blog has an interesting post on strange trilobites.  Trilobites come in all shapes and sizes.  Many are "weird", but probably not any weirder than what is found in the modern, natural world.  The discussion is on both natural deformities from when the animal was alive and deformities caused by the fossilization process.  There is even an example with a bit mark.

Human society has always been intrigued by the physical abnormalities of their peers. In the nineteenth century, ‘freak shows’ were such an attraction that even the American Museum in New York had a permanent exhibition displaying a variety of malformed individuals as entertainment (Saxon 1989). But inherent abnormalities are obviously not restricted to the human species. Pretty much every animal we see in nature – both Recent animals and, as you will see, animals preserved in the fossil record – can have odd defects. Today, we present a fossil freak show with a cast of prehistoric oddities amongst the trilobites, a long extinct group of arthropods that proliferated in the Paleozoic Era.

 

Tully Monster Presentation: Waubonsee Community College on September 22nd, 2016

Here is a presentation which is likely to be of interest to ESCONI members.  David Voorhees, an Associate Professor in geology at Waubonsee Community College (and our January 2017 General Meeting speaker) organizes a series of talks called "Asset Earth".

The talk is scheduled for September 22nd, 2016.  Coincidentally, the September talk is on the Tully monster.  Here are the particulars:

X-ray imaging at Argonne National Laboratory: The Case of the Tully Monster Fossil
 
The presentation will be an overview of Argonne National Laboratory, and a short introduction to imaging at the Advanced Photon Source. The mystery of the Tully Monster fossil, the State Fossil of Illinois, will be presented. We will then describe how the imaging techniques at Argonne helped to place the Tully Monster fossil into the Tree of Life.

Authors

- Dr. Lydia Finney, University Partnerships Lead for the Leadership Institute, the Program Initiator for the Women in Science and Technology Program of the Office of the Director, and a Physicist in the X-ray Science Division of the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory
- Dr. Carmen Soriano, Assistant Physicist - X-ray Science Division of the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory
 

 

Kickstarter: The Paleozoic: a series about life before the dinosaurs

Here's an interesting project on Kickstarter.  It consists of 5 accordion books covering the 280 million years of prehistoric life.  $25 for 1 book and a t-shirt or $50 for all 5 books.  It covers the Cambrian Explosion, the Permian Mass Extinction, the Devonian transition to land, and much more... Check it out!

"The Paleozoic" is a series of five illustrated accordion books about the era before the dinosaurs. Starting from the Cambrian explosion to the Permian's great dying, the books explain the major events and evolutionary milestones of each period in plain language. Illustrated and written over the course of 5 years by Estrella Vega, this series was originally silkscreen printed and handbound in very small editions. This Kickstarter's goal is to raise funds to offset print 500 sets of this 5 book series (for 2500 books total) so as to make them affordable and available to a greater audience.

The inspiration for this project came from the realization that most people don't know what preceded the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, because they were huge and fearsome looking animals, dominate our idea of prehistoric life. Though the Paleozoic doesn't boast huge animals (with a few exceptions), it nonetheless laid the foundation of our modern world: from establishing the basic body plans of all existing life forms, to creating the coal deposits that fueled our industrial revolution. Through this series, I hope to demystify the events and life forms of that era to the lay person.

Each book will have an embossed hardcover and measure 4.75 inches wide by 6 inches tall. The accordions unfold to a 108-inch long illustration. Each accordion illustration flows into the next to make one mega picture measuring 42 feet. The accordions fit into a pocket on the inside covers and can be detached to be used as wall art.

 

Science News: Paleontologists discover major T. rex fossil

A T. rex tooth discovered by UW Burke Museum paleontologists in Montana.
Tom Wolken/Burke Museum

Science News has an interesting item about the discovery of a new Tyrannosaurus rex fossil.  The skeleton includes the skull, ribs, vertebrae, and parts of the jaw and pelvis.  It was discovered this summer by two University of Washington Burke Museum paleontology volunteers, Jason Love and Luke Tufts.  About 45 people contributed to the recovery, which took about a month to complete.  The animal was given the nickname "Tufts-Love Rex" after the discoverers.   It lived about 66.3 million years ago, which was very close to the end of the Cretaceous Period.

The original story appeared in the UWToday.

Paleontologists with the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture have discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex, including a very complete skull. The find, which paleontologists estimate to be about 20 percent of the animal, includes vertebrae, ribs, hips and lower jaw bones.

The team, led by UW biology professor and Burke Museum Adjunct Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Greg Wilson, discovered the T. rex during an expedition to the Hell Creek Formation in northern Montana — an area that is world-famous for its fossil dinosaur sites. Two Burke Museum paleontology volunteers, Jason Love and Luke Tufts, initially discovered pieces of fossilized bone protruding from a rocky hillside. The bones’ large size and honeycomb-like structure indicated they belonged to a carnivorous dinosaur. Upon further excavation, the team discovered the T. rex skull along with ribs, vertebrae, and parts of the jaw and pelvis.

T. rex was one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs to ever roam the Earth. Measuring an average of 40-feet long and 15 to 20-feet tall, T. rex was a fierce predator with serrated teeth and large jaws. Fossil evidence shows it ate other dinosaurs like Edmontosaurus and Triceratops, with crushed bones from the animals even showing up in the its fossilized poop. T. rex lived about 66–68 million years ago in forested river valleys in western North America during the late Cretaceous Period.

 

September 2106 General Meeting Title Change: Paul Mayer "How Digitization Helped Tame the Tully Monster"

September's General Meeting will feature a presentation by Paul Mayer of the Field Museum.  He is one of the co-authors of the paper "The Tully monster is a vertebrate", which appeared in Nature back in March.  It should be a very interesting presentation.  It starts at 8:00 in room 1038B of the Tech Ed (TEC) Building at the College of Dupage (Map).

Don't miss it!  Afterward, we will have the usual refreshments and stimulating conversation!

 

ESCONI Events September 2016

Fri, Sept 9	ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "How Digitization Helped Tame the Tully Monster” by Paul Mayer of the Field Museum
Sat, Sept 10	ESCONI Minerology Study Group Meeting 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "Show and Tell"
Sat-Sun, Sept 10-11	Field Trip - Braceville for Mazon Creek Fossils. See here for details.
Sat, Sept 17	ESCONI Paleontology Study Group Meeting 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "Show and Tell"
	Field Trip - Starved Rock Clay Pit. See here for details.  Date changed to October 8th, 2016.
	ESCONI Archaeology Study Group Meeting - Open at this time, seeking a chair
	ESCONI Junior Meeting - Open at this time, seeking to restart the group.  Contact Diana Lord for information.

 

Field Trip: September 10-11, 2016 Braceville—Mazon Creek Fossils

Collecting Mazon Creek Fossils on private property.

Meet at 8:00 A.M. Saturday or Sunday at the BP Amoco in Coal City. No Age Limit. Hard Hats not required. Take I-55 to Exit 236 (Coal City). Take a right onto Highway 113 (Division Street). Go west to Broadway Street and Division in Coal City.

We will be collecting Mazon Creek concretions from an old spoil pile on private property.  Hard hats are not required. Boots are recommended. An Estwing rock hammer is the best tool. A small shovel or pick is helpful. Gardening tools such as a hand rake work also. Knee pads, backpacks, fanny packs, extra clothes (you will get wet and muddy) are also a plus.

Bring a bucket for the fossils. Also bring insect repellant.

Check the web site for details or contact John Good at 1-630-303-2352 for reservations or
e-mail at esconi@hotmail.com.

 

Island’s Mammoths May Have Been Thirsty at Their Extinction - 5,600 Years Ago

The NY Times has a story about the last Mammoths on a small island in the Bering Sea.  Using a variety of data, researchers, led by a team from Penn State University, have shown that the Woolly Mammoths on St. Paul Island went extinct about 5,600 years ago.  The cause seems to be due to a lack of fresh water.

The study, led by scientists from Pennsylvania State University along with scientists from elsewhere in the United States and Canada, analyzed a variety of indicators to show that these woolly mammoths became extinct about 5,600 years ago. According to Russell W. Graham, a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State and the study’s lead author, this may be the most precisely dated prehistoric extinction.

The authors of the study found that rising seas, which shrank the island’s size, were not enough to cause extinction, but may have indirectly caused the extinction event: The swelling seas reduced available habitat and freshwater sources, making life difficult for the giant animals.

The scientists analyzed four proxies for megafaunal presence (in this case, mammoths): sedimentary ancient DNA and three fungal spore types from near a lake, a key source of freshwater on the island. They also were able to get a sense of the vegetation on the island at the time, using several proxies from sediment cores. These cores showed that the area around the lake was likely stripped of vegetation by the mammoths, which might have sped up the lake’s erosion, causing it to fill in and worsening its quality.

The original research paper appeared in PNAS.