This is Mazon Monday post #36. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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Recently, there has been a few questions about the Mazon Creek-like fossils from around Terre Haute, Indiana. Although there is a pretty rich history of these fossils, there's not much reference information about the locality. There were actually two distinct localities in the area. They are the Chieftain No. 20 Flora of the Dugger Formation in Vigo County Indiana and the Stanley Cemetery Flora of the Brazil Formation of both Vigo and Green Counties in Indiana. The age of the Chieftain No 20 deposit is around 305.5 million years old, which is a little younger than the Mazon Creek deposits at about 307 million years ago, while the Stanley Cemetery Flora is older at about 313 million years ago. The fossils found there included many of the same plants and animals as those found in the Mazon Creek biota.
The following article appeared in the March-April 1967 issue of Earth Science magazine. It was written by Merton Young, a prolific collector whose entire collection of Chieftain No. 20 plants now reside in the collections of the Indiana University. In the last few years, Jim Konecny, a past president of ESCONI, donated a large collection of Indiana fossil plants to the Field Museum.
