Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

ESCONI Flashback Friday #10: Tony Sobolik, I Remember............

As part of the run up to ESCONI's 70th Anniversary, here is Flashback Friday post #10.  If you have pictures or stories to contribute, please send them over to [email protected].  Thanks!

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Here is an article entitled "I Remember............" by Anton "Tony" Sobolik that appeared in the 40th Anniversary issue of the newsletter in 1989.  He was president of ESCONI for 1962-1963 and he, along with his wife Viola, received an honorary service award in 1969.  He also served as 1st Vice President (1961), 2nd Vice President (1960), Historian (1959), Curator (1966-1969), and many other capacities including the Paleontology Study Group Chairman.  Additionally, his wife, Viola, as also very involved with ESCONI throughout the early 1950s and 1960s, serving in many official and unofficial positions.  Mr. Sobolik died on January 30th, 2001.  He was 87.  As far as I can tell, he remained an ESCONI member to the very end!

 

I REMEMBER
by Tony Sobolik

Here are some of the things that I remember ---

• Gene Richardson, Curator of Fossil Invertebrates at the Field Museum, pipe in mouth, as he gazed pensively through the microscope at some unidentified creepy crawler from Pit 11.
• Walter Bonow and Joe Bloom arguing as to whether trilobites, when living, had blue or brown eyes!
• How as the day wore on my canvas war surplus collecting bucket became heavier and heavier. Back at the car when emptying it I discovered Howard Knight had secretly, periodically, slipped in a few worthless rocks or pieces of scrap iron.
• Gale Law and his camera always ready when requested for that needed photo.
• Wading in Mazon Creek on a field trip, feeling for nodules with my toes!
• That in 1955 the ESCONI News was mailed to members for 2 cents!
• The look on Jim Konecny's face as he opened the split concretion that I had secretly planted in his path and found an S & H green stamp inside.
• Doc Hoff strumming his Ukulele while Claude Warren tinkled the ivories as we all joined in for some close harmony on a field trip to Brown County, Indiana.
• The first time I heard the name Earth Science Club, I thought they were a group of professional people interested in soil chemistry or a related field.
• When Executive Board and the early years of study group meetings were held in homes. After the meeting adjourned the group descended into the basement to view the hosts collection. Many wives said the effort was worth it, as it forced the husband to clean up the basement!
• The meetings in Wilbert Rath's basement to create the "Plant Life Through the Ages" models. Armed with large card board tubes, chicken wire, Styrofoam and various tools, we mixed buckets of dry wall cement, applied it and then shaped it to form our replicas. Approximately one half of the cement ended up on the model, one half on the modelers!
• Howard Knight flipping the light switch off and on at the Hummer Park Field House study group meetings to signal to the stragglers that the meeting plus hospitality was over, and that it was time to vacate the premises.
• In the early 1950's accidentally meeting George Langford on the Braidwood spoil piles as he, using his only arm, hammered open fern fossil nodules which he held between his feet. Usually his son assisted him, but if his son was not close by to help George Sr. sometimes cached them in a hastily dug hole. He admitted he sometimes forgot where they were buried.
• In those same early years I entered the Pit 11 office of the Peabody Coal Company to secure permission to collect an employee by the name of John McLuckie, who was just coming on duty told me I was welcome to look but Pit 11 did not have any worthwhile fossils, so I left. It took a collector by the name of Francis Tully (of Tully Monster fame) and, another collector named Jerry Herdina, whose fabulous collection now resides at the Field Museum to introduce me to the world of the rich Essex fauna.
• Jean Reynolds who graciously helped me out when I was President by taking over the important task of Editor.
• The beautiful silver work of Harry Peterson, especially the trilobite bola and accompanying trilobite pin which each President and Presidents spouse is priviledged to wear.
• The Frank Fleener day at Braidwood with a picnic hosted by a number of Chicago region clubs. At the event, Dr Fleener, a prominent coal fossil collector from the Joliet area would give a talk on some aspect of fern fossils.
• Mary and Earl Cornwell who for so many years gave unstintingly of their time and effort on behalf of the Earth Science Magazine.
• When the spoil piles at Braidwood were bare.
• The first Esconi meeting I attended in 1955 at the Downers Grove High School, . As I slowly approached the Auditorium entrance I was warmly greeted by Jerry Prepp, who later that evening provided me with the requirements for membership. Over the years I was active in Esconi, there were two wonderful dedicated people, Marty and Jerry Prepp who could be found at the entrance to the meeting room, making people welcome.
• The magnificent Fern Fossil collection of John and Lucy McLuckie housed in their Coal City home.
• In 1962 Vi and I accompanied by Jay Farr, hauled the Hilmer Display case to the Midwest Federation Convention at Des Moines, Iowa. Leaving about 4 a.m. we arrived at Des Moines, assembled the case, unwrapped the display material furnished by each study group plus the Juniors and filled the case. At 2 p.m. we collapsed in our motel room. The center portion of the case which displayed green fluorescent glass from the John Ades collection also featured a motor driven continuous fluorescent tape, designed and crafted by Jay Farr, which advertised and extolled the accomplishments of ESCONI.
• Collecting fossils at Braidwood in a snowstorm in early Spring after the first thaws left the gullys between spoil piles a quagmire, and in the heat of August when exposed nodules were almost too hot to handle.
• Fran Wolff who, following behind me as we climbed up and down the hills at Pit 11, usually came up with the find of the day that I had passed up.
• The dedicated efforts of Esconi Associates, a special committee, which resulted in the publication of the two Langford books.

There are of course many other memories that occasionally come to mind, all made possible by the wonderful people. If my recollections have kindled some pleasant memories in the minds of you old-timers, and let the younger members know how things once were, my efforts in preparing this article will be repaid.

 

Smithsonian: Discovery of Raptor-Like Dinosaur Adds a New Wrinkle to the Origin of Birds

Smithsonian has a story about the discovery of a small dinosaur that sheds light on the origin of birds.  While excavating a Supersaurus nicknamed "Jimbo", Wyoming Dinosaur Center paleontologist spotted some small bones amongst the enormous bones.  Named Hesperornithoides miessleri, the animal lived about 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic.  The specimen is referred to as "Lori", after volunteer Lori Hockemeyer, who was involved in the 2001 find.  All the details are in a paper published in the journal PeerJ.

At first, Wyoming Dinosaur Center paleontologist Jessica Lippincott says, it seemed like the remains might belong to a flying pterosaur—a non-dinosaur reptile that lived during the same time. But further examination revealed that the bones represent something never seen before: a new species of raptor-like dinosaur, the oldest yet found in North America. “We have the smallest dinosaur and the largest dinosaur found in Wyoming, both in the same quarry,” Lippincott says.

Those bones, representing a partial skeleton, were used to name the new dinosaur Hesperornithoides miessleri today in the journal PeerJ. Described by University of Wisconsin-Madison paleontologist and artist Scott Hartman and colleagues, this dinosaur is categorized as an early member of a group of svelte, small, sickle-clawed dinosaurs known to experts as troodontids. These were raptor-like dinosaurs related to the group that contains more famous carnivores like Velociraptor, as well as the forerunners of birds.

Found in the roughly 150 million-year-old rock of the western United States’ Morrison Formation, Hesperornithoides adds to a growing theme. Even though big dinosaurs such as Stegosaurus, Allosaurus and Apatosaurus have been known from the Morrison Formation for over a hundred years, experts are only just now filling out the ranks of smaller species that lived at the same time. “Hesperornithoides is a stark reminder to paleontologists that little gems can be found hidden away in these same layers of rock,” says University of Calgary paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky.

Roy Plotnick: I’m not lying

A Snowball Earth glacial dropstone, Sperry Wash, California. I saw it with my own eyes.

Roy Plotnick has yet another insightful blog post over on Medium.  Take his advice, get out and experience nature first hand!

I began teaching physical geology in Fall 1982. Like all other instructors of this type of course, I would discuss a wide variety of landforms and show textbook provided slides (you know, pieces of film in a cardboard mount) of them. But in nearly all cases, I had never seen them with my own eyes. The following summer, my wife and I drove from Chicago to San Juan Island, Washington. For the first time I walked on a glacier, saw alpine topography and stream terraces. I turned to my wife and said, “I wasn’t lying.”

The Onion: Mariana Trench Once Again Named Worst Place To Raise Child

The Onion has a funny post that details the Mariana Trench as the worst place to raise a child.  A non-existent school system and utter darkness are listed among the reasons for the unfortunate rating.

“In all categories, the Mariana Trench consistently got our lowest marks as a good place to start a family,” the 14-page article read in part. “The school system is nonexistent, the nearest playground is 300 nautical miles away, and at over 15,000 pounds per square inch, the hydrostatic pressure is enough to crush a child in less than a second.”

“While the area does contain a low crime rate, that benefit is quickly negated by the Mariana Trench’s lack of a police department, not to mention fire, sanitation, highway, or public works departments,” the article continued.

The Mariana Trench, with zero acres of community parkland, a median household income of $000,000.00, and an unemployment rate of 100 percent, has held its spot as Parenting’s worst place to raise a child for seven consecutive years now, thanks largely to its un-family-friendly freezing temperatures and high concentration of exothermic bacteria.

According to the magazine, competition for the worst spot in the rankings was particularly fierce this year, with the Mariana Trench competing with locations as far-ranging as Mt. Everest, an industrial slaughterhouse, an iceberg drifting in the Arctic, St. Louis, and the cone of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano.

PBS Eons: When Ichthyosaurs Led a Revolution in the Seas

 

PBS Eons has a video about the rise of the Ichthyosaurs after the "Great Dying" at the end of the Permian.  PBS Eons is a great, educational series from PBS on Youtube, with a new episode each week.

The marine reptiles Ichthyosaurs arose after The Great Dying, which wiped out at least 90 percent of life in the oceans, changing the seas forever and triggering a new evolutionary arms race between predator and prey.

myFOSSIL Project Newsletter for Spring 2019

There's the myFOSSIL Project Newsletter for Spring 2019.  You can download it from here.

Peter Makovicky of the Field Museum has an article about Past ESCONI President Karen Nordquist's discovery of Galagadon nordquistae.

Highlights:

• Featured Professional: Steven Manchester
• Amateur Spotlight: Linda McCall
• Featured Fossil: Dedicated Volunteer Discovers New Shark Species While Microsorting Through Matrix of SUE the T. rex by Peter Makovicky
  
• Research: Megalodon Evolution Along the Calvert Cliffs of Maryland by Victor Perez
• Education: Thinking Outside the (Specimen) Box by Jess Miller-Camp
• Education: The Paleo Primer Series: Bringing Local Prehistory to the Public by Becky Barnes
• Paleoart: Raven Amos
• Valentine’s Day Challenge by Jennifer Bauer & Mary Jane Hughes
• Fossil Project Updates by Jennifer Bauer & Sadie Mills
• Upcoming Events

 

Follow Us On Twitter @ESCONI!

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ESCONI Flashback Friday #9: Illinois State Fossil - The Tully Monster

As part of the run up to ESCONI's 70th Anniversary, here is Flashback Friday post #9.  If you have pictures or stories to contribute, please send them over to [email protected].  Thanks!

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The following article appeared in the 50th Anniversary issue of the newsletter.  Unfortunately, Francis Tully (yes!  an ESCONI member!) didn't live to see it, but the Tully Monster was designated the State Fossil of Illinois in 1989.  While much is still uncertain, we know quite a bit more about the animal today.  See here for more details.

Illinois State Fossil

Governor James R. Thompson has signed legislation designating Tullimonstrum gregarium The Tully Monster as Illinois' official State Fossil. The creature which lived 280 - 340 million years ago probably never grew longer than 12-15 inches, joins a wide range of animals, minerals and vegetation as official Illinois symbols. Included among there are the Cardinal, White Oak, Monarch butterfly, Bluegill, Fluorite, White-tailed deer, Violet and Big Bluestem prairie grass.

An impression of the soft-bodied marine animal was found more than 30 years ago in a rock picked up by an avocational geologist in an abandoned strip mine near Braidwood in Grundy County. The creature was named for its discoverer, the late Francis Tully, a weekend rockhound and geology hobbyist from Joliet who died in 1987, at the age of 75.

Tully, a pipefitter employed by a Joliet firm for 31 years, hunted for fossils throughout the area on his days off. He encountered the first preserved imprint of the creature in 1955 when he cracked open a rock during one of his forays into the strip mine area. More than 100 additional examples of the fossil reportedly have been found in ensuing years, but none has been discovered outside the region encompassing Mazon Creek or the strip mines in the vicinity of Braidwood, Coal City and Braceville, 50 miles south of Chicago.

Tully Monster was the only fossil considered for elevation to the status as an official representation of Illinois. Its selection was based on the fact that it apparently is found nowhere else outside of the state.

Efforts two years ago to have the unusual critter named as the State fossil failed. It was presented again and is now official.  It is a product of warm seas and lush equatorial swamps. The area in which it was found was known to be the northeastern extension of the primordial Sea of Illinois.

An invertebrate, (an animal having no backbone), the beast had a dirigible-like body. On one end was a spade shaped tail which must have provided propulsion. At the opposite end of its body was a long trunk tipped by a toothy claw. Protruding from the torso were stalks that scientists suspect were its eyes. An indentation under these eye stalks may indicate the location of its mouth.. Little else is known about the creature.

Francis Tully was an ESCONI member having joined in 1960.

ESCONI September General Meeting on September 13th, 2019 at 8:00 PM

The speaker at our September 13, 2019 meeting will be Dr. Ashley Klymiuk, Collections Manager, Paleobotany, at the Field Museum. The topic of her talk will be fossil fungi.  Come on out... it should be very interesting!

Dr. Az Klymiuk is a Métis Canadian botanist, mycologist, and paleontologist.  Her research comprises comparative plant anatomy of gymnosperms and morphological systematics of fossilized microfungi.  In the course of her doctoral work at the University of Kansas, she became interested in plant-microbe interactions in dynamic redox systems that characterize wetland soils, and has worked to understand how the ecology of living root-associated fungi is impacted by these harsh biogeochemical conditions.  At the Field Museum, she is the collections manager for Paleobotany.

Half-tonne birds may have roamed Europe at same time as humans

The Guardian has a post about large flightless bird that might have roamed Europe at the same time.  Researchers discovered the fossilized thigh bone of a giant bird in a cave on the Crimean peninsula.  It belonged to an animal called Pachystruthio dmanisensis, which lived between 1.5 and 1.6 million years ago. This bone and others were described in a paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Analysis of the 40cm-long bone and others found with it date the remains to between 1.5m and 1.8m years old, suggesting the birds may have been part of the local wildlife when Homo erectus, an ancient ancestor of modern humans, reached Europe 1.2m years ago.

The enormous birds may well have been a valuable source of meat, bones, feathers and eggshells for the early human settlers, the scientists say.

Nikita Zelenkov, a palaeontologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that when he first received the thigh bone for study he thought it must be from a long-extinct elephant bird from Madagascar. “No birds of this size have ever been reported from Europe,” he said.

Field Museum: Meet Earth’s smallest superheroes!

The Field Museum has a new exhibit.  It's called "Fantastic Bug Encounters".  Everything you ever wanted to know about bugs.   There's very informative displays with bunches of specimens, spiders, insects, myriapods, and many less well known types.  They have a live bug zoo, where you can pet a hissing cockroach or let a millipede crawl up your arm.  Check it out and get a whole new appreciation for bugs!

Bugs are all around us. Whether they’re flying, crawling, or digging deep below our feet, they live fascinating lives that we often don’t see.

Now, step into a larger-than-life version of their hidden world. Told from a bug’s point of view, Fantastic Bug Encounters! invites you to take a closer look at the beauty, diversity, and amazing abilities of these resourceful creatures. 

Can you outwit a jumping spider, match a dragonfly’s speed, or beat the reflexes of a mantis? Explore hands-on stations to learn about the unique superpowers of spiders and insects—their adaptations. 

Then, meet some live bugs with talents like breathing underwater and playing dead. You’ll even have the chance to hold a few of them at the Live Bug Zoo. 

Observing bugs’ special skills helps us create new technologies and solve human-sized problems. From flight to medicine to working together, there’s a lot we can learn from bugs.

PBS Eons: When the Synapsids Struck Back

 

PBS Eons has a great video about the ancestors and evolution of the mammals and the Permian Mass Extincton.  

Synapsids were the world’s first-ever terrestrial megafauna but the vast majority of these giants were doomed to extinction. However some lived on, keeping a low profile among the dinosaurs. And now our world is the way it is because of the time when the synapsids struck back.