Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Happy Halloween from ESCONI! #Halloween

Fossil Friday #29: Enrolled Isotelus #fossils #fossil #FossilFriday #Ohio #trilobite #Isotelus

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #29.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected].  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

-----------------------------------------------------

For this Fossil Friday, we are highlighting a specimen of Isotelus .  Isotelus is a genus of asaphid trilobites that lived during the middle and upper Ordovician period.  This little guy is an enrolled and hails from the state of Ohio, where his species, Isotelus maximus, is the state fossil.  One of the telltale characteristics to distinguish Isotelus maximus from Isotelus gigus, is the presence of genial spines.  I. maximus has them and I. gigus doesn't.

Throwback Thursday #31: The Nanotyrannus Find on the Burpee 2002 Montana Expedition #TBT #history #BurpeeMuseum #Tyrannosaur #dinosaur #Montana

This is Throwback Thursday #31.  In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general.  If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected].  Thanks!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jane was discovered during the Burpee Museum's paleontology expedition to Montana's Hell Creek Formation back in 2001.  The current thinking is she's a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex. Although, when she was first presented, it was as a  Nanotyrannus lancensis.  Dave Carlson, who's currently our 1st Vice President, was the speaker at the ESCONI November 2002 Paleontology Study Group Meeting.  Here is the how it was described on the original ESCONI website.

The Nanotyrannus Find on the Burpee 2002 Montana Expedition

Dave first showed us the tentative lineup for PaleoFest on the 22 and 23 of February.  They have an all star lineup with Bob Bakker, Greg Paul, Peter Larson and Tom Carr and others.  One panel talk will put Tom Carr who says Nanotyrannus is a separate species and Bob Bakker who says it is a juvenile T rex together for an interesting discussion.  They hope to have some tooth analysis done by the time of the meeting for discussion.  They had hoped to find a nice Triceratops to bring back to Rockford.  However, the year before they had found some interesting theropod toe bones and decided to go back to that site to get some more of the animal.  They stayed in Ekolaka in SE Montana near Buffalo South Dakota.  Ekolaka has about 400 residents and it is not easy to get to on paved roads.  They stayed at Camp Needmore (now a 4-H camp) which is south of the city.  The site was west on Powderville Road on the edge of Carter County.  Cell phones did work there.  The land is BLM land and the Museum has permits for areas in Carter County.  There is a small Carter County Museum in town where there is a hadrosaur Anatotitan on display. 

Mike Henderson was there the end of May (and they had some snow) and into June and Dave went out in June.  The site area is mixed badlands and grassland.  They are in the middle of a terrible drought.  There are tall bluffs about 200 feet high where it is very windy on top.  However, it gets very hot in the lower areas.  There were frequent bomber flights overhead also.  At the site they took one week to remove the overburden with shovels, picks and buckets since the toe bones were found at the bottom.  The hips and legs were found near the edge near the toe bones and had to be plastered to protect them while they were taking the hill down.  They also found worn vertebrae and ribs.  The skull was not found until July and was under areas where they had been working and walking in June.  One toe bone has a curve to it and it is probably a “green stick fracture”.  When it was young the bone was stressed on one side almost to the breaking point and did not break cleanly through.  Tissue grew over it (called osteocondroma) and covered the bone with cartilage.  The matrix is sand and mud and clay and is soft and relatively easy to clean.  The toes came right out easily.  The toe bone was at SVP and the experts there gave the above explanation.  “Jane’s” first name was “Earl”.  The age of the site is at the very end of the Cretaceous at 65 MY and is in the Hell Creek Formation.  A slide of the illium showed an interesting feature.  The elongated and rounded illium has support struts radiating out to the edge of the bone.  Dave found a hadrosaur toe lying out on the ground.  They are not sure if it is from Anatotitan but it is large.  The museum fossil on display is 45 feet long so it is a big animal.  The toe is white from sitting out in the sun like modern bones.  They believe that “Jane” probably died, fell into a stream and washed up on a sandbar.  Some elements may have washed away.  They also found claws of other animals in the area.  On top of one of the tall bluffs they found it covered with bones.  They found a weathered dental battery that may have been from a Triceratops because there was material that looked like frill material.  They found some smooth weathered bones near it that might have been gastroliths.  They uncovered the lower right jaw that is missing the bones in the back of it, but with lots of teeth still in or nearby.  The upper jaw was found nearby along with some ribs.  They have both lower jaws.  They hope that there is more of the skull in the big block.  There are 15 teeth in both lower jaws and 8 premaxillary teeth (which are narrower than the lateral teeth).  The first Nanotyrannus is now in the museum at Cleveland and is greatly restored and crushed.  There is so much plaster that it is hard to tell if the bones are fused or not.  Pete Larson made the 3 hour drive to come to the site to see “Jane’.  They have the humerus that has now been prepped.  The hips, legs and other bones are now in the big block that needed special equipment to get it out. 

They tried to keep their find secret to prevent vandalism.  But soon BLM officials showed up with their archeologist, some kids and others.  They were anxious to publicize it because they were proud to have it found in their area.  Dave had some photos of the bones and jackets.  He works two days a week as a volunteer there.  He estimates it took about 120 hours to get the jaw out.  Joe Peterson did a drawing of the site showing that it is partly articulated in a typical death pose (see drawing above).  They estimate that the animal was 8 feet high at the hip and about 18 feet long.  They feel they have about 30-35% of the bones by count and 60-70% by mass.  They hope to have the big jacket open by PaleoFest and on display.  They plan to return to Montana in 2003 and are looking for diggers.  Check the website for info.  They already have the prepped bones on display and you can watch Dave work on Monday and Wednesdays.  They are hoping to keep the prep work in-house, although The Black Hills and Paul Sereno have shown interest in doing the work.  By 2005 they hope to have “Jane ‘ on display.

Juvenile T. rex fossil "Jane" with red arrow showing the anticipated infection area on the lower left foot. Burpee Museum of Natural History at Rockford, Illinois

SciNews: New Research Provides Comprehensive Reconstruction of End-Permian Mass Extinction #MassExtinction #Permian

An illustration depicting the onset of the end-Permian mass extinction. Image credit: Dawid Adam Iurino / PaleoFactory, Sapienza University of Rome / Jurikova et al, doi: 10.1038/s41561-020-00646-4.

SciNews has a story about new research that provides insights into the causes of the "Great Dying".  The End Permian Mass Extinction was the worst extinctionsin Earth's history.  It occurred about 252 million years ago.  During it, about 96% of all marine species and over 70% of terrestrial species went extinct.  Those percentages are for whole species not individuals... it was truly a catastrophe of epic proportions!  Massive volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia played a central role, but the causal trigger and the feedbacks that led to climate change are not fully understood.  Recently, a research team led by Dr Hana Jurikova of the GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum fur Ozeanforschung Kiel published a paper (in the journal Nature Geoscience) that provides a consistent reconstruction of the mechanism that led to this mass extinction event.

Dr. Jurikova and her colleagues studied isotopes of the element boron in the calcareous shells of fossil brachiopods and determined the rate of ocean acidification over the Permian-Triassic boundary.

“These are clam-like organisms that have existed on Earth for more than 500 million years,” Dr. Jurikova said.

“We were able to use well-preserved brachiopod fossils from the Southern Alps for our analyses.”

“These shells were deposited at the bottom of the shallow shelf seas of the Tethys Ocean 252 million years ago and recorded the environmental conditions shortly before and at the beginning of extinction.”

Because the ocean pH and atmospheric carbon dioxide are closely coupled, the researchers were able to reconstruct changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide at the onset of the extinction from boron and carbon isotopes.

They then used an innovative geochemical model to study the impact of the carbon dioxide injection on the environment.

“With this technique, we can not only reconstruct the evolution of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, but also clearly trace it back to volcanic activity,” said co-author Dr. Marcus Gutjahr, a researcher at the GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel.

H. Jurikova et al. Permian-Triassic mass extinction pulses driven by major marine carbon cycle perturbations. Nat. Geosci, published online October 19, 2020; doi: 10.1038/s41561-020-00646-4

ESCONI Events November 2020

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

Fri, Nov 13th	ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 PM Zoom - Topic: "New Tetrapod Discoveries from Mazon Creek” by Arjan Mann from Harvard University.   Zoom link
Sat, Nov 14th	ESCONI Junior Meeting 7:00 PM Zoom - Topic: "It looks like wood, but it's actually rock."   Zoom link will be provided.
Sat, Nov 21st	ESCONI Paleontology Meeting 7:30 PM Zoom - Topic: "What I Did On My Trilobite Vacation to Utah" by ESCONI member Rich Holm.  Zoom link.

 

 

ESCONI November 2020 General Meeting - November 13th, 2020 at 8:00 PM via Zoom - "New Tetrapod Discoveries from Mazon Creek” #fossils #paleontology #MazonCreek #vertebrates #tetrapods

Our speaker via Zoom in November is Dr. Arjan Mann. Arjan recently received his PhD from Carleton University in Toronto. He is transitioning to a postdoc position at Harvard. Arjan co-authored articles naming two new species of microsaurs called Diabloroter and Infernovenator. The title of his talk is “New Tetrapod Discoveries from Mazon Creek”.

Here's a link to some information about him:
https://newsroom.carleton.ca/story/filling-fossil-record/

Hell hunter and devil digger. When Arjan Mann names a species, he doesn’t mess around.

As part of his PhD research into carboniferous period creatures, the Carleton Earth Sciences student identified two new species. The two species date from about 310 million years ago, when the ancestors of modern reptiles, birds and mammals were moving permanently on to land.

The first he named Diabloroter — devil digger. Mann studied the specimen at the Field Museum in Chicago, where it had been preserved in a devilishly red latex peel. Its hard skull is similar in structure to modern animals that burrow, digging into the earth by compacting soil with their heads.

The second of the two creatures was an elongated, short-limbed animal that would have moved by sidewinding — much like a modern snake. He called it Infernovenator (hell hunter) to stick with the hellish theme.

Mazon Monday #31: Species Spotlight - Fanworms #MazonMonday #MazonCreek #worms #fossils

This is Mazon Monday post #31.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

-----------------------------------------------------

Today, we are highlighting Fanworms.  Mazon Creek fanworms were soft bodied animals and are thought to be polychaetes.  They were and currently are filter feeders, which live in the ocean.  Some are free swimming and some others live in tubes they construct on the ocean floor.

All of the specimens shown here were found at the Braceville spoil pile, although they have been found in other Essex localities.

Here is the text about fanworms from Creature Corner.  It was first published December 1990.

Fanworms

Numerous animais have been discovered in Mazon Creek siderite concretions, but not all have been subsequently described and classified.This is the case with several (?) genera of the sedentary polychaetes (Sedentaria) that are lumped together under the descriptive term "fanworms".

Due to the excellent preservational qualities of the ironstone concretions, free-living polychaetes of the Essex biota began to be described about two decades ago, following the "glory days" of Pit 11. A rather common member of the Mazon Creek biota, the fanworm Spirorbis, was noted more than a century ago as occurring in Mazon Creek nodules. This recognition and description of Spirorbis was relatively simple due to the distinctive shape and the fact that its living, virtually unchanged descendants are found in enormous number on seaweed and nearshore debris today: it is an animal easily recognized by a student of marine life.

In contrast to the marine worms previously mentioned, our Creature, the tube-building fanworms that are found in Mazon Creek concretions are not common and are found with their unencased soft parts, the long tentacles, preserved as mere color differences on the siderite matrix. A lack of recognizable detail precludes satisfactory description of these particular polychaetes. The discovery of one or two well-preserved specimens might then make generic diagnosis a possibility.

Recent fanworms (and it is assumed their Paleozoic ancestors did likewise) build tubes made of mucus and sand grains or shell fragments or lime cemented over a mucus framework that hardens into a parchment-like protective structure. True tube-dwelling polychaetes rarely or never leave their protective shield. Reefs of fanworms have been found in the tropics, some reaching a meter in height. The several suborders of recent fanworms have some common characteristics: they have a crown of tentacles often huge, fan-like and brightly colored; they are filter or current feeders; they possess relatively enormous nerve fibers extending from one end of the body to the other within the main nerve cord; and they have well developed longitudinal muscles that retract the worm promptly into its protective tube when threatened.

Photographs of a seabed bearing a lawn or forest of fanworms, with their crown of hairy or plume-like tentacles waving in the ocean current, is strangely reminiscent of another phylum of animals that have a crown or head of plume-like appendages, the crinoids. The crinoids have evolved a column of discs that lift the feeding arms into the currents, while the worms developed a group that uses cemented particles to achieve the same lifestyle. Most interesting.

From the book "The Mazon Creek Fossil Fauna" by Jack Wittry

Mazopherusa prinosi Hay, 2002

Mazopherusa prinosi, commonly called the Fan Worm, has a tapering cylindrical body that ends in a narrow tail. The body is composed of annular segments, each adorned with six to eight sometimes visible, wart-like projections.Its fan is com- posed of long setae and is retractable.

Flabelligerids are considered to be rather sluggish animals. Modern forms are described as being mud-dwellers and surface-feeders.While resting in their burrows, they extend their fans to create eddies causing detritus to fall into their bodies which is then transported toward their mouths. The bodies of these extant forms are often covered with thick mucus in which sand, shell fragments, or other debris have become entrapped. The debris-laden mucus then hardens into a parchment-like protective structure. Mazon Creek fan worms are considered colonial animals, as evidenced by concretions containing multiple specimens. (See Figure 19.2 below and Figure 169.4, page 169.)

True tube-dwelling polychaetes rarely or never leave their protective shields.

Video: ESCONI General Meeting, September 2020 - "Carboniferous Fossils Reveal How Fishes Evolve, and How They Don’t" #fossils #MazonCreek #fish #Carboniferous

"Carboniferous Fossils Reveal How Fishes Evolve, and How They Don’t” The speaker at our September 11th, 2020 general meeting was Dr. Lauren Sallan from the University of Pennsylvania. Her presentation was done via Zoom and started at 8:00 PM. Dr. Sallan received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2012. She was a co-author of the 2017 article that determined that the Tully Monster was not a vertebrate. She also works on Paleozoic ray-finned fishes and sharks.

Here's a link to her lab webpage, which includes links to her TED Talks: http://www.laurensallan.com/

 

SciNews: New Pterosaur Species Unearthed in China #pterosaur #fossils

 

 

Life reconstruction of Ordosipterus planignathus. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

Sci-News has a story about a new pterosaur discovery in China.  This new species is called Ordosipteris planignathus.  It lived about 110 -120 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period in what is now Inner Mongolia, China.  A paper describing this animal appeared the journal China Geology.

This flying reptile belongs to Dsungaripteridae, a family of robust pterosaurs that includes several genera and species from Asia and South America.

“As a member of the Dsungaripteridae family, Ordosipterus planignathus enlarges the geographical distribution of the dsungaripterid pterosaurs from the northwestern China — with western Mongolia — to central North China,” said Dr. Shu-an Ji, a paleontologist in the Institute of Geology at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and the Key Laboratory of Stratigraphy and Palaeontology at China’s Ministry of Natural Resources.

-------------------

Shu-an Ji. 2020. First record of Early Cretaceous pterosaur from the Ordos Region, Inner Mongolia, China. China Geology 3 (1): 1-7; doi: 10.31035/cg2020007

 

Fossil Friday #28: Petosky Stones #fossils #fossil #FossilFriday #Michigan #petosky #petoskystone #coral

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #28.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected].  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

-----------------------------------------------------

For Fossil Friday this week, we are going to highlight Petosky Stones, which are found around the towns of Petosky and Traverse City along Lake Michigan in the state of Michigan.  They were named the state stone of Michigan in 1965.   The stones are actually a fossilized rugose coral, Hexagonaria percarinata, which lived during the Devonian Period about 350 million years ago.  They went extinct at the end of the Permian as part of that mass extinction event.  Rugose corals could be solitary or colonial.  Hexagonaria was colonial.   That's why we find fossilized chunks with interlocking hexagonal shapes.  These shapes are very distinctive when smoothed and polished.  The genus Hexagonaria was pretty common and fossils can be found across the mid-west.  Besides Michigan, they are very common around Coralville, Iowa.

The name comes from an Ottawa chief, Chief Pet-O-Sega, who was the son of a French fur trader and an Ottawa mother.  The city of Petosky is also named after him.  From Wikipedia.

According to legend, Petosegay was a descendant of French nobleman and fur trader, Antoine Carre and an Ottawa daughter of a chief. Petosegay, meaning "rising sun", "rays of dawn" or "sunbeams of promise", was named by his father after the rays of sun that fell upon his newborn face. Building on his father's start and his place among the Ottawa, Petosegay became a wealthy fur trader who also acquired much land in the region, gaining acclaim for himself and his band. He was said to have a striking and appealing appearance, and spoke both French and English very well. He married another Ottawa, and together they had two daughters and eight sons. In the summer of 1873, a few years before the chief's death, settlers began to develop a village on his land along Little Traverse Bay. The settlers named it Petoskey, an anglicized form of Petosegay.^[2]

Michigan.org has a good page with tips on where to find the stones.  You can also find information on geologyin.com.  Maybe, plan a vacation to collect them next summer...

 

Throwback Thursday #30: Winter's Field Trip #TBT #history

This is Throwback Thursday #30.  In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general.  If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected].  Thanks!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the past, many of the issues of our newsletter Earth Science News ended with a poem from a member.  You might recall that we've run a few in our previous Flashbacks and Throwbacks.  There was a poem about a collecting trip in November 1950,  Diamond in the Rough from Jun 1952, Ode to a Blob in 2002, and even the ESCONI Class Song in 1967. 

Today as we stand on the precipice of winter, we have a poem called "Winter's Field Trip" by W. H. Allaway first president of ESCONI.  This poem appeared in the newsletter in March 1952.

Winter's Field Trip

When the winter winds are blowing
And the snow is swirling round
That's the time to dream of summer
And the many rocks you've found.
So you dig into your bookcase
And lift out a massive tome
Whereupon the wings of fancy
Take you many miles from home.
You will climb into the mountains
Just to breathe the clean fresh air
You will enter darkened caverns
Just to see the wonders there.
Then your restless mind will take you
Down a lonesome desert trail
In the shimmering heat the rattler
Fiercely wags his clacking tail.
From the desert you will journey
Thru the Mid-West prairie land
Pushed up from the inland ocean
By a giant's mighty hand.

On you go down winding river
And thru fields of golden grain
Waving bravely in the sunshine
Bowing low before the rain.
As you wander on in dreamland
Viewing things of yesterday
At each place you take a sample
Of the rocks along the way.
But your pack does not get heavy
Nor your knees begin to sag
As you stuff a few more geodes
In your old collecting bag.
And your legs do not get tired
As the miles go reeling by
You just wander like a cloudlet
Riding in a summer sky.
So you see it's fun collecting
On a lonely winter's nite
Sitting in a cozy armchair -
Dozing in the fire-lite.
        -- W. H. Allaway

LiveScience: 1st of their kind baby tyrannosaur fossils unearthed #tyrannosaurs #dinosaurs @SUETheTrex #fossils

Researchers have found a toe claw (shown in yellow, second from left) and jawbone (shown in blue, third from left) of baby tyrannosaurs that lived between 75 million and 70 million years ago in North America. For scale, here are reconstructions of the tyrannosaur babies compared with an adult Albertosaurus tyrannosaur (left) and lead researcher Gregory Funston. (Image: © Gregory Funston 2020)

LiveScience has a story about the first baby tyrannosaur ever discovered.  These new fossils, which may be a tyrannosaur embryo, were discovered in Montana in 1983.  They were reexamined due to research into a toe claw of a baby tyrannosaur that was found in Alberta Canada in 2017.

The research, which is not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, was presented online Tuesday (Oct. 13) at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual conference, which is virtual this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The teensy, 1.1-inch-long (2.9 centimeters) tyrannosaur jawbone still sports eight little teeth. Because it was stuck in the surrounding rock, the researchers scanned the jawbone with a particle accelerator, which let them image the fossil without excavating it. Despite the jawbone's miniature size, "it looks surprisingly like other juvenile tyrannosaurid jaws," Funston said. "It has a deep groove on the inside and a distinct chin, which are both features that distinguish tyrannosaurs from other meat-eating dinosaurs."

These features helped convince other paleontologists that the jawbone truly is from a tyrannosaur — "we can know that these features can be used to identify tyrannosaurs no matter how immature they are," Christopher Griffin, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Yale University, who wasn't involved with the research but attended the presentation at the conference, told Live Science.

Trilobite Tuesday #27: 10 Terrific Facts About Trilobites #trilobite #fossils #TrilobiteTuesday #trilobites

Mental Floss has a post about trilobites.  Here are some highlights.

• Over 20,000 species are currently known.
• Trilobites first appeared around 450 million years ago.
• Many would curl up into little balls for protection.
• At first, scientists didn't know what to make of them.
• Most trilobite fossils are actually molted exoskeletons.
• Three states have mad a trilobite their official fossil.
• Trilobites gathered food in a variety of ways.
• Trilobites were wiped out by the biggest extinction in history.
• Native Americans used them as amulets.
• One Chinese trilobite was named after a Star Wars character.

Check it out for the details!

 

Mazon Monday #30: The Diamond Mine Disaster At Braidwood #coal #MazonMonday #MazonCreek #History

This is Mazon Monday post #30.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

-----------------------------------------------------

This week's Mazon Monday isn't about fossils... we are recalling a coal mine disaster in Diamond, IL on February 16th, 1883.  ESCONI had a great lecture about this event back in June 2019 by Michele Micetich, of the Carbon Hill School Museum in Carbon Hill, IL.  If you get a chance, catch her informative lecture held every year on the anniversary at the Coal City Library. 

You can visit memorial marker in Diamond, IL to commemorate the event and honor the 69 men who died that day.   This monument erected by the United Mine Workers of America in 1926.

Unfortunately, the coal mining that brings us many of the stunning fossils at Mazon Creek has a tragic history with many fires, floods, and cave ins.  The Diamond Mine Disaster was a flood. Wayne's World of History & Genealogy has a great page about the tragedy and its aftermath.

The most conspicuous event which has occurred during the year, or which has ever marked or marred the annals of coal mining in this State, was the calamity which befell the Diamond Mine, and the miners in it, at Braidwood, in February last. At this place, by the sudden precipitation of a sea of surface water into the workings of the mine, in the middle of the day, 69 men were engulfed and miserably perished; 39 women were made widows; 93 children were made fatherless, and the mine itself and its owners were involved in common ruin.

The history of coal mining in all times and countries presents a deplorable record of sudden death and disaster to coal miners.

There is said to be ten square miles of this level and marshy tract upon which the Diamond and other mines are located, and it is all so flat that no natural drainage is locally possible, and ordinarily all accumulations of water lie upon the surface until absorbed or evaporated. Even when thrown out of the mines with pumps it has no alternative but to find its way through the soil back again. Another feature of the situation is that all of the coal in this field is worked on the long-wall system, and as fast as the mineral is removed the surface comes down with the roof, and consequently makes a loose, irregular break all along the face of the workings, particularly susceptible to the action of water, and leaves in general and uneven and treacherous surface for water to stand upon.

For several days prior to the 16th of February, 1883, there had been a general thaw in the vicinity of Braidwood, accompanied by warm rains, which reduced the winter's snow to water and swelled it to a flood, which overspread the entire surrounding country. That this was an unusual condition of things, is not claimed. Water in similar quantities had accumulated and stood upon the surface there before. On several occasions in former years, surface water had found its way into the mine, and two years previously it had broken through in such quantities as to create general alarm. In this case it is stated only that the volume of water was not greater than usual. Its depth is given as from one to three feet, but whether it were more or less would seem hardly to affect the gravity of the situation. It was spread like a sea over the entire face of the country, and constituted an open menace to every mine in the vicinity. That it was regarded as an element of danger, is shown by the action of the superintendent of an adjacent mine, who prohibited the men from going into his works, and ordered out those who had gone down before his arrival. Yet the men of the Diamond Mine went below that morning as usual, and with only 54 feet of sand and surface drift between them and an untold weight of water, began the day's work which they never finished.

There's also a good amount of information at the Coal City Public Library site.

The following excerpt regarding the Diamond Mine Disaster comes from  The Wilmington Advocate dated February 19, 1883.

There are many persons who even yet do not fully understand how the terrible affair of Friday could have occurred. The first man who knew anything concerning the break was the pump man, who is located at the bottom of the shaft, and whose duty it is to keep the water out of the shaft and see that the loading of the coal cart goes on properly. He had just sent up a load of coal, and upon going back to the pumps he found the water was rising rapidly, and the cause, he thought, was a lack of steam power in the engines above. He accordingly went up and saw the engineer, who said he had on as much steam as usual. The engineer stepped into the cage and went down to see what was the matter, and to his astonishment he found the water unto his waist and rising rapidly. He also found a number of miners who had come to the shaft to escape. An alarm was at once given by the "shovers," and all made for the top. The big whistles of the engines were sounded three times, and the little hamlet recognized it as the signal that the mine was flooded. Nearly four hundred distracted women and children gathered in a few minutes, and the heart sickens when imagination paints the scene that followed. The water in the mines was rapidly rising, and the stealthy stream had swoolen into a roaring torrent. The miners had received a late warning, and they started, some toward the main shaft and others toward the air shaft, a little west of it. The tide met them before more than twenty had reached the principal exit. Some had lingered to warn friends or to collect tools. The rushing water, which was descending like an Alpine torrent, with the impetus given to it by a fall of eighty-five feet, struck many of the unfortunate victims, whirling them away, and dashing them against the blackened roof with irresistible force. Some struggled on with the seething water up to their arm pits, but at points, where the roof sloped downward, they found the waves touching the top, and recognized the terrible underground trap. One man dived three times under the sloping roof and finally rose in the mine shaft and climbed into an elevator. He was a good swimmer and knew the locality perfectly, hence he was the only one of those whom the waters had shut off who escaped when hope had deserted everyone else.

NPS.gov: Sharks, Fossils, and Caves: Secrets Revealed at Mammoth Cave #fossils #Kentucky #sharks #Mississippian

The Mississippian age (325 MYA) ancient sea and marine life preserved at Mammoth Cave National Park.  Painting by Julius Csotonyi. NPS image.

NPS.gov has a story about some remarkable new fossil discoveries in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  The fossils date to the Mississippian Period about 325 million years ago and reveal a very diverse shark fauna.  There are 40 species of shark, which includes six new species.  The painting above and new information are being presented as part of National Fossil Day 2020.

A team of paleontologists, cave specialists, and park rangers at Mammoth Cave National Park have discovered a trove of fossil treasures that has yielded one of the most diverse Mississippian shark faunas in North America. At least 40 different species of sharks and their relatives have been identified, including 6 new species. Rare preservation of three-dimensional skeletal cartilage documented in Mammoth Cave allows us to understand the anatomy and relationships of these ancient sharks.

The discoveries in remote cave locations in Mammoth Cave National Park were made during an ongoing paleontological resources inventory that began in November 2019. The Inventory goal is to identify the many types of fossils associated with the rock layers exposed outside and within the caves in the park. Several of the caves in the park were known to contain the fossil remains of ice age mammals in unconsolidated deposits and fossils of ancient marine organisms preserved within the limestones in which the caves developed.

PBS Eons: How Ankylosaurs Got Their Clubs #dinosaurs #paleontology #ankylosaurs #fossils

 

PBS Eons has a new episode.  This one is about Ankylosaurs and how they got their clubs.

While clubs are practically synonymous with ankylosaurs, we’ve only started to get to the bottom of how they worked and how this unusual anatomy developed in the first place.

Fossil Friday #27: Alethopteris serlii from the Mazon River #MazonCreek #fern #fossils #fossil

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #27.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected].  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

-----------------------------------------------------

Maybe it's the size or the 3 dimensional preservation, but this is at least the second Alethopteris serlii specimen that has made it onto Fossil Friday.   This awesome fossil was found by Brandon Bergsten at the I&M Canal Corridor Mazon River Fossil Trip back in August 2020.  It only took a few weeks of freeze/thaw to get this concretion open.  Congratulations, Brandon!

 

Throwback Thursday #29: Best Fossil 2015 #TBT #history #fossils #trilobites #MazonCreek #Megalodon #crinoid #shark

This is Throwback Thursday #29.  In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general.  If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected].  Thanks!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a few years, the Paleontology Study Group held a Best Fossil contest for National Fossil Day.  The first one was back in 2015.  We had some awesome specimens.  Here are some photo highlights from that day.

Wow!  Having fun in person!

Nice Mazon Creek fern... Crenulopteris.

An amazing crinoid!

An enrolled Isotelus and another Crenulopteris.

An unbelievable shark egg case!  Look closely, there's a horseshoe crab on there too!

Shark teeth... Megalodon.

Alethopteris serlii from Mazon Creek.

Fish from the Green River Formation

Inoceramus from the Cretaceous

Awesome Isotelus found in the Larson Quarry near DeKalb, IL

 

Happy National Fossil Day 2020!!! #fossils #paleontology

Happy National Fossil Day 2020!!!  National Fossil Day is run by the National Park Service as part of Earth Science Week.  Details for NFD are here, while you can find more about Earth Science Week here.

During 2020 we celebrate the 11th Anniversary of National Fossil Day!  Join paleontologists, educators, and students in fossil-related events and activities across the country in parks, classrooms, and online during National Fossil Day.  National Fossil Day is an annual celebration held to highlight the scientific and educational value of paleontology and the importance of preserving fossils for future generations.

 

Video: ESCONI General Meeting, June 2020 - "Dino-Sores: Injury and Behavior in Cretaceous Dinosaurs" #dinosaurs #cretaceous #paleontology

 

We are pleased to present to you the video of our first zoom general meeting. It was held on June 12th, 2020. We had a remote speaker. He was Dr. Joe Peterson from the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh. Joe earned a BS Geology at SIU-C and an MS/PhD Geology from NIU. Since, then, he worked and volunteered at Burpee for many years. The title of his program is “Dino-Sores: Injury and Behavior in Cretaceous Dinosaurs”.