As part of the celebration of ESCONI's 70th Anniversary, here is Flashback Friday post #28. If you have pictures or stories to contribute, please send them over to [email protected]. Thanks!
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Here is the announcement of the 2002 Mazon Creek Project Open House. From the sound of the report that follows, it very surely an interesting event! The Burgess Shale, The Solnhofen, and Mazon Creek mention in one lecture! Wow, you know that had to be good!
Note that at the end of the report, Desmond Collins comments that Pit 11 is "closed down" and maybe 1/4 of the possible fossils have been found from there. Well, Pit 11 hasn't been "closed down", we still are finding the 3/4 fossils left there. It may be harder now to find concretions than in the 1970s, but I know a bunch of people that can't wait to get back at it next spring!
Strip Mine Hills, Will County, IL. circa 1970.
MAZON CREEK PROJECT OPEN HOUSE
OCTOBER 19, 2002 12:00 to 4:00 PM
College Of DuPage
Student Resource Center (SRC) Rooms 1450 A&B
Co-sponsored by ESCONI
Speakers
Peter Fortsas "Collecting Rare Science Books"
Desmond Collins of The Royal Ontario Museum
Fossil Identification
Bring your Mazon Creek fossils to the Open House. ESCONI experts and others will help identify your finds.
Fossil Displays
Displays of NEIU(Northern Eastern Illinois University) and private collection of Mazon Creek Fossils.
Silent Auction (12 noon to 3:30 p.m)
Book Sales
Richardson's Guide will be available for sale along with ESCONI Books.
Refreshments - Cookies plus vending machines in COD Cafeteria
Any questions about Mazon Creek, please contact Andy Hay, [email protected]
Mazon Creek Open House Report 2002
The Mazon Creek Open House was held at COD this year and was co-hosted by ESCONI. It was well attended and everyone enjoyed the exhibitors, the silent auction, and the talks. The exhibitors included Wendy Taylor from Project Exploration who brought Tully Monsters from The Field Museum, Jim Fairchild, Tom Testa, Bealis Giddings, and Dave Dolak. Charles Shabica opened the program with a welcome and thanks to all participants. He stressed how important it was for us to continue support for this extraordinary fossil site. He then introduced the two speakers.
The first speaker was Peter Fortsas who has a rare book search firm. He talked about collecting rare science books. A first edition can be very expensive. For example, there were only 1250 copies of Darwin’s book printed in 1859 making it cost about $75,000 today. This would compare to a second edition at about $300. He recommended storing good books in closed cabinets in dark rooms. Never store them in plastic bags as this can promote the growth of mold. For very valuable books that are falling apart, it would pay to have them professionally rebound. There are not many bookbinders around today so it can be difficult to get it done today. Have them appraised if they are valuable because if lost insurance might only reimburse the few dollars paid rather then the full value.
Then special guest speaker Desmond Collins from the Royal Ontario Museum was introduced. He explained that although he was closely connected with a different important lagerstatten (extraordinary fossil locality), the Burgess Shale (BS) in Canada, there were similarities between it and our Mazon Creek (MC) biota. Along with a third site, Solnhofen, there are some interesting comparisons to be made. Collectors like to know how their site compares within the hierarchy of sites around the world. He has personal experience with Mazon Creek, having visited it in 1969 on a field trip from the Field Museum. Photos of the site from the air then and in 1989 (with the Ramsdales), show the drastic change that has occurred. The collection of Mazon Creek fossils was facilitated by Eugene Richardson who realized that we amateurs could do a lot of the collecting. And that is the genesis for why we are all here today at this Open House. His first visit to the Burgess Shale was in 1972 three years after his visit to Mazon Creek. An international congress in Montreal had a field trip there with a very international group of experts. The quarry was in a national park where you could not collect. The quarry then was a fossil ridge about 30 to 40 yards long. In 2000 the quarry had been enlarged.
There are two main differences between the two sites. The Burgess Shale is dated to the Middle Cambrian at about 500 MYA . The Mazon Creek site is Pennsylvanian and is dated to about 280 MYA. During the Burgess Shale time, animal life was first evolving in the sea. In the Pennsylvanian in addition to the sea life, life is evolving on land. Slides showed drawings of the two life scenes. He then showed a series of double slides with many showing a Burgess Shale critter on the left and a similar Mazon Creek critter on the right. There were some very interesting likenesses and differences that he pointed out. He started with a Mazon Creek marine Pit 11 Medusa and an undescribed Burgess Shale jelly fish side by side. The Mazon Creek has a greater range of jellyfish. A major difference between the two groups of animals is because of the living conditions. In the Burgess the animals were in 15 to 100 meter deep water in the sea. In Mazon Creek the animals were living in shallow muddy forested areas, which is unsuitable for some of the Burgess animals. He showed a Burgess sea pen and a Mazon hydroid, animals at about the same grade of evolution. He showed the worm Ottoia (BS), a priapulid worm with a proboscis, compared to Priapulites (MC) with similar structures. And they are still around today as the modern Priapules. In polychaete worms, there is Canadia (BS) compared to the Oliver Hardy worm (MC). The bristle worm Burgessochaeta (BS) and Didintogaster (MC) were compared. The very interesting 2 to 3 inch long Wiwaxia (BS) is compared to the very spectacular Esconites (MC). The Mazon Creek fanworm recently named by Andrew Hay, Flabelligerida, was specially featured and congratulations extended to Andrew. An undescribed arrow worm about 2 inches long (BS) has spines on one end and flesh shaped like the feathers on an arrow, but the MC one does not have the spines. They are rare in the Mazon Creek as they are plankton feeders out in the sea. Other worms such as nematodes and round worms have been found in Mazon Creek but not yet in Burgess Shale.
Moving on to arthropods, there is the first onychophoran (velvet worm) described named Aysheaia (BS) that is compared to Ilyodes (MC). Another fascinating one is Hallucigenia that shows that the Burgess Shale has a wider variety of these velvet worms. Moving on to more traditional arthropods, the chelicerids are represented by Sanctacaris (BS) and the modern day horseshoe crab. Trilobites are very rare in Mazon Creek because it was the wrong environment for them. With the fine Burgess Shale preservation you can see the actual antennae and the legs of the trilobites. Among crustaceans you have Canadaspis (BS) and Kellibrooksia (MC). Then to flea shrimp with a newly undescribed specimen in BS and Concavicaris from MC. There is a tremendous range of arthropods at both sites. He showed Burgessia (BS), Mamayocaris (MC), Emeraldella (BS), and the common Belotelson (MC), Waptia (BS), Acanthotelson (MC), the most common BS fossil Marrella, and Tyrannophantes (MC), Sidneyia (BS) named after the son of Walcott and Cyclus (MC), the oldest goose barnacle (BS) and Illilepas (MC) which shows the appendage not seen in the specimen from the Burgess Shale.
One animal is the same today as it was in the Cambrian and that is the inarticulate brachiopod Lingula. The only possible difference is that the Cambrian one does not show a very strong peduncle as seen in the later ones. Brachiopods were the more common bivalves in the Paleozoic and they become fewer until clams and mollusks took their place. He showed an inarticulate brachiopod from BS with two valves and Edmondia (MC) in its burrow, an articulate brachiopod from BS and a pectin from MC, a monoplacophoran named Scenella (BS) and chiton (MC). The next group was echinoderms with a free swimming Eldonia with feeding tentacles (BS) and the MC Achistrum that is a bottom feeder with plates around its mouth. There are more echinoderms in BS than in MC, again because of the muddy conditions. The oldest specimen from the BS is Echmatocrinus. Next are the chordates with the little chordate called Pikaia similar to amphioxis or a sea lancelot compared to a lamprey from Mazon Creek. There are many more chordates in Mazon Creek than in Burgess Shale because they hadn’t evolved yet. He showed slides of Acanthodes, a shark and coelacanth, a discoid fish from Mazon Creek.
And now you have animals on land also in Mazon Creek. You find amphibians like Amphibamus. Then he moved on to the “weirdoes”. He put up the Tully Monster (MC)and said that the Opabinia (BS)might possibly be an ancestor. Tully has two eyes on a bar and Opabinia has 5 eyes in front. Both have a claw out of the front and conical tails. Some of the unknowns are a strange kind of arrow worm called Amiskwia (BS) and the “H” animal or Etacystis (MC). There are more weirdoes in Burgess Shale as shown by Hallucigenia (now shown with its spines up), Nectocaris that has arthropod features in the front and chordate features in the back, and the major predator of the time Anomalocaris, which is now one of a slew of similar animals called dinocarids. There aren’t any sponges in Mazon Creek because it was too muddy for them. The Burgess Shale has the best Cambrian sponges known.
Looking at reconstructions of the Burgess Shale and Mazon Creek shows that they stack up pretty well. The Burgess Shale is older and more primitive and has more of the weirdoes. If you just compared them like that then the Burgess Shale would come out ahead. But then you have to look at the land – scorpions, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, silverfish, cockroaches, dragon flies and termites, winged insects, etc as a small sample of what there is in Mazon Creek. And then you have the plants – ferns, horse tails, Neuropteris, Annularia, and many more. Of course, the Burgess Shale has none of these. So the two are difficult to compare. You would need to look at another site with sea and land life such as found at one of the most famous lagerstatten in the world at Solnhofen in Jurassic Germany. This is where lithographic limestone preserves very detailed life impressions. He showed slides of examples of the fossils found there including jellyfish, polychaetes, starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, crinoids, ammonites, belemnites, lots of arthropods, shrimps, horseshoe crabs and their circular trails (they may have died of thirst as they moved in ever smaller circles), coelacanths, bony fish, sharks, ichthyosaurs, sea going crocodiles, insects, roaches, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and the most important fossil of Archaeopteryx.
How do they stack up? Jack Sepkowski’s chart shows marine animals over time. The Burgess Shale has a spike which is important because it is right at the beginning. There is a steep climb to a plateau after the Ordovician and the Mazon Creek comes in there and shows the marine life and then life on land. And then Solnhofen in the Jurassic has many like Mazon Creek except plants. So each is important in its way for what it shows. They each in their own way are the best example of the life of that particular time. When we are collecting at Pit 11, rest assured that you are at a unique place in the world and that you have a better view of life 300 MYA than anywhere else in the world.
He then answered questions from the audience. It is felt by us that sometimes the Mazon Creek is underappreciated. Solnhofen has been famous for a long time and the fossils are found in active quarries used for limestone products. There are no permits to export fossils needed so the fossils are all over the world (except Archaeopteryx). So that makes it better known. The Germans are also very well informed and fossils make big news there. Pit 11 is essentially closed down so it will become even less well known. Someone mentioned that there might be ¾ of fossils left there. Collins said that it was because so many of us went after the fossils that there is as much known and collected as there is. However, it is still there and buried for posterity. But he does not think that there will be any government recognition to treat it special. He responded to questions about Canada’s rules on collecting. At Burgess Shale you can not take anything. There are stringent laws about taking fossils out but it is not enforced well. You apply as you leave and then Canada (Collins himself is the person they check with as an expert) must decide if they want it. If they do Canada will pay market rate for it. Otherwise you can keep it. The question of the diversity of Greenland Anomalocarids was questioned. He replied that there was less diversity and in general the preservation is not as good. They are probably older because of the more primitive nature of those fossils.
Charles Shabica then thanked the speakers and attendees and they moved to the silent auction, fossil displays and refreshments.
