This is Mazon Monday post #33. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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Last week, we spoke about a couple books published by ESCONI in the 1980's - "Keys To Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Plants of the Mazon Creek Area" in 1986 (updated in 1990) and "Keys To Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Animals of the Mazon Creek Area" in 1989 (republished in 1999). This week we will explore a newsletter column that formed the basis of the "Keys" animal book and was eventually collected into a separate book published in 2001.
The column "Creature Corner" was written by Andy Hay and illustrated by Don Auler. It appeared in the newsletter between June 1984 and December 2001. Each article was about a species or group of fossil animals found in the Mazon Creek biota. At the time, there was little to no easily accessible information to help identify these animals as many were discovered after the Langford books were published in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Back then, scientific papers were much harder to obtain, so these articles helped members identify and learn about specimens in their collections. Additionally, these columns provided the ESCONI board with encouragement to create the Keys To Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Animals of the Mazon Creek Area" in 1989.
The introduction of the book was written by Karen Nordquist who was president of ESCONI in 2001.
Introduction
Many of our more recent ESCONI members (including myself) were not able to enjoy the Creature Corner articles written by Andy Hay and illustrated by Don Auler many years ago. We keep hearing about them from the old timers, but cannot easily find them to read. Now we have gathered as many of them as we could find to reprint for the next generation of ESCONI members and friends.
I'm sure that you will enjoy reading them (or rereading them) now that they have been compiled in this booklet. I'm sure you'll admit that it is about time that wwe were all allowed to share them again. They are compiled in the date order in which they were originally printed with an extra bonus on the first page.
Thank you to Andy and Don for allowing us to put this together and for their willingness to share their knowledge and talent with all of us. And many thanks to Jack Wittry for his help in gathering the pages and to Bryan Nugent for his enthusiastic help in putting this together.
The ESCONI Board
Karen Nordquist,
President November 2001
The author and illustrator of the column provided comments for the book.
Comments from Andrew A. Hay
I started out presenting this information at the monthly Paleontology meetings and then expanded out to the ESCONI Monthly Bulletin (My deepest appreciation to Jean Reynolds who had to manually retype and rearrange my text in order to accommodate the artwork). Locating copies of the original descriptive papers on our "Creatures" was often as great a pleasure as finding their fossil. Hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I did putting them together.
Comments from Don Auler
Except for the scientific description, I drew the fossils as I saw them in the concretions. Others did not understand why the fossil was not precisely drawn (i.e. drawing the fossil as it would look like in real life). I deliberately did not enhance the fossil because it would give a false impression of what it would look like out in the field.
T used my own fossil samples or samples from other ESCONI members in order for me to draw an accurate picture of the fossil. Looking back I feel that I made the right decision and am proud of what Andy and I have accomplished.
Here are a few of my favorite pages from the book.
You have and will continue to see outtakes from the "Creature Column" book in this series. It still has relevant information. And, although the book is out of print, there are a few copies left. Have a look at the books available at the next ESCONI show.
Unfortunately, Andy Hay passed away in 2003 and Don Auler in 2002. They were both very involved in ESCONI for many years. They are sorely missed. And, many happy memories of them are still passed around.