Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Do You Have BIG Plans for this Weekend? Maximo is at the Field Museum!

Máximo the Titanosaur is at the Field Museum this weekend!  Come on out and check him out!

Máximo the Titanosaur has arrived at the Field Museum from Patagonia and will be ready for his close-up this weekend. Bring your family and friends for a first look at this awe-inspiring sight in Stanley Field Hall as we put the finishing touches on Máximo, and install the fossil of Patagotitan mayorum’s eight-foot-long femur for everyone to see. Don’t forget to visit the second story balcony and take a selfie with Máximo!

June General Meeting is on Friday, June 8th, 2018 - Dr. Rex Hanger from the University of Wisconsin

The June 2018 General Meeting is on Friday, June 8th, 2018.  The speaker will be Dr. Rex Hanger from the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. His program is entitled "Cretaceous Reef Paleoecology of Central Texas".  Don't miss it!

Nope, octopuses probably didn’t come from outer space!

ZME Science has a great post about the online controversy about the Octopus genome.  Cephalopods are not aliens and the author Mihai Andrei does a great job explaining why.

The new study, penned by over 30 researchers, essentially rehashes the theory of panspermia — the idea that life on Earth emerged in outer space, hitching a ride on meteorites or other objects that crashed into Earth at one point, something often referred to as the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe (H-W) thesis of cosmic biology.

The research starts from the Cambrian Explosion an event approximately 541 million years ago, during an age called the Cambrian period. The Cambrian Explosion was an age of extreme diversification of life, during which most major animal phyla started to emerge. The study’s authors question whether that happened naturally, with just the elements existing on Earth.

“One particular focus are the recent studies which date the emergence of the complex retroviruses of vertebrate lines at or just before the Cambrian Explosion of ∼500 Ma. Such viruses are known to be plausibly associated with major evolutionary genomic processes. We believe this coincidence is not fortuitous but is consistent with a key prediction of H-W theory whereby major extinction-diversification evolutionary boundaries coincide with virus-bearing cometary-bolide bombardment events,” the study reads.

In other words, what they’re saying is that life didn’t just emerge on its own, it was “seeded” from life-bearing comets that pummeled our planet at various times throughout history. These comets could have brought a myriad of novel life-forms from other planets, including viruses. This is one of the main assumptions of the H-W thesis — that small bodies such as asteroids and comets can protect the “seeds of life”, including DNA and RNA. So far, so good; this is a plausible idea, that has been investigated since the 1970s and continues to be analyzed by various groups. There’s not much evidence to say that it did happen, but with what we know so far, it might have happened.

Then, the authors make a big leap: if you’re not convinced by the panspermia theory, you need not look farther than the octopus. Octopuses have very complex nervous systems and big, specialized eyes — two unprecedented features.

“A second focus is the remarkable evolution of intelligent complexity (Cephalopods) culminating in the emergence of the Octopus,” the study continues.

This is where it starts to get thorny. Cephalopods, the group in which octopuses belong, did emerge in the Cambrian — the fossil records clearly suggest so. But the early cephalopods were Nautiloids, a very diverse group of creatures which exist to this day. But Nautiloids look completely different to octopuses, and they don’t share many of their impressive features. In fact, octopuses didn’t emerge until the Devonian, 323 million years ago. This means that there’s a window of over 200 million years from the Cambrian explosion to when the first true octopuses emerged, which is plenty of time to selectively develop specialized features (there are studies which say octopuses developed a bit earlier, but not significantly in this context).

 

Happy Birthday, Mary Anning!

Mary Anning was born on May 21, 1799.   Letters from Gondwana has a great write up on her life.  She has been referred to as "the greatest fossilist of the 19th century". Just a couple of her many accomplishments:

• Found an excellent Ichthyosaur at age 12 in 1811
• Discovered the first Plesiosaurus in 1823
• Discovered a preserved ink bag from Belemnoidea.  Remarkably, the ink survived fossilization and was usable in pens!
• Found some of the first documented coprolites
• Discovered an animal that eventually became Dimorphodon macronyx
• Discovered Squaloraja - part shark, part ray in 1829
• Discovered Plesiosaurus macrocephalus in 1830
• It has been documented that she was the inspiration of "She Sells Seashells"

 

 

The CGMA Show for 2018 is Saturday, May 26th and Sunday, May 27th 2018

The show is this weekend.  Full details are found on their website along with a map.  Download the show flyer here.  It is always a great time, don't miss it!

 

CGMA

Galaxy of Gems

42nd Annual Show

May 26th & 27th, 2018

Memorial Weekend

Kane County Fairgrounds

525 S. Randall Road, St Charles, IL 60174

Saturday, 10 a.m.- 6 p.m.

Sunday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Over 30 Dealers, Special Exhibits, Demonstrators. Kids Korner, Door Prizes, and More

Adults $5, Seniors (62) and Students $3, Two-day Passes Available.

Active Service Personnel and ID, Scouts in Uniform, Kids under 13 FREE.

Free Parking - Air Conditioned - Food Available

Wholesale Room - Requires Current State Tax ID and Trade Credentials

Saturday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Sunday 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

 

YouTube Channel: PBS Eons - The Weird, Watery Tale of Spinosaurus

 

The PBS Eons YouTube Channel has a episode about Spinosaurs.  Enjoy!

In 1912, a fossil collector discovered some strange bone fragments in the eerie, beautiful Cretaceous Bahariya rock formation of Egypt. Eventually, that handful of fossil fragments would reveal to scientists one of the strangest dinosaurs that ever existed -- the world’s only known semi-aquatic dinosaur.

Meet Maximo the Titanosaur!

The Field Museum has revealed the name of the new titanosaur that is being installed in Stanley Field Hall in the next few weeks.   His scientific name is Patagotitan mayorum.  He lived about 100 million years ago in what is now Patagonia, Argentina.  The spanish word maximo translates to "maximum" or "most" in English.  This name references his massive size!

The largest dinosaur ever discovered is on his way to the Field Museum and we can't wait for you to meet him. Our giant pre-historic friend, Máximo the Titanosaur, will make his debut at the museum this June. 

• This tremendous titan weighed about 70 tons, roughly as much as 10 African elephants. 
• Máximo is about 122 feet in length. To put that in Chicago terms, he’s as long as two accordion CTA buses.
• Máximo’s head will reach the second-story balcony, perfect for selfies!

 

Braceville Field Trip Report for Spring 2018

it started out rainy and fairly cold (46 degrees), but the day turned out nice.  There were many concretions found.  Hopefully, they will prove to be more than just potentially fossil bearing.  The world has turned very green recently!

 

Medium: More than dinosaurs

Pterygotus, the T. rex of the Silurian (about 1.5 m long). Diorama previously at the Field Museum.

Roy Plotnick has an interesting article published at Medium.  Paleontology is much, much more than dinosaurs.  Enjoy!

It happened again today. I was asked what it is do and when I said I was a paleontologist, the response was “cool.” This is the common reaction, often followed by (if we are not confused with archeologists), asking how many dinosaurs I have discovered. I then have to explain that although I study fossils, I don’t work on dinosaurs and have never discovered one.

CBC Quirks & Quarks - A new fossil reveals the first bird beak - and it came with teeth as well

The toothed early bird Ichthyornis showing the first form of the avian beak (Michael Hanson and Bhart-Anjan Bhullar)

CBC's Quirks & Quarks has a segment about the first known bird beak.  It belongs to Ichthyornis a bird that dates to about 80 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period.  The species was first identified in the 1870's and named by Othniel Charles Marsh, of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History.  The original paper appears in the journal Nature.

Recently, however, newly discovered fossils of Ichthyornis came into the hands of Canadian paleontologist Dr. Bhart-Anhan Bhullar, an assistant professor in the Departments of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University, and the Assistant Curator of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History. The new fossils included one remarkably complete skull, with well preserved three-dimensional features.

The skulls indicate that Ichthyornis retained many features of its dinosaur ancestors. There are holes in the skull that would have supported large jaw-closing muscles, more like dinosaurs than modern birds. In modern birds, those muscles became smaller to make room for a bigger brain. Also Ichthyornis retained teeth used in its powerful dinosaur-like bite. But at the tip of the snout the animal had a small, but serviceable, beak.

ESCONI Events May 2018

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

Fri, May 11th	ESCONI General Meeting, 8:00 PM College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "Mississippi Valley-type Mineralization at the Conco Mine, North Aurora, Illinois" by Jared Freiburg
Sat, May 12th	Field Trip, Braceville for Mazon Creek Fossils, 8:00 - 2:00 PM - see details in this post
Sun, May 13th	Field Trip, Braceville for Mazon Creek Fossils, 8:00 - 2:00 PM - see details in this post
Sat, May 19th	ESCONI Paleontology Study Group Meeting, 7:30 PM College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "Pterosaurs" by Rich Holm