Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Throwback Thursday #39: Paleontological Ditty #TBT #history #ESCONI #paleontology #dinosaur

This is Throwback Thursday #39.  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!

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Today we have poem from the July - August 1977 edition of the ESCONI newsletter.  It's called  "Paleontological Ditty" and was written by Rex Webb, who was a member of the Minnesota Mineral Club.  It appeared in their newsletter "Rock Rustlers News".  From the attribution, it may have also appeared in the Ozark Earth Science News.

"Paleontological Ditty"

The first rockhound was a lizzard,
His rock collection was in his gizzard,
Now they say there is no question
These rocks helped with his digestion.
But the motive I discover
He was just an old rock lover,
Since he did not have a shelf
So he kept them to himself

This was years ago, I guess
Hundred million, more of less
Still they find these polished stones
Intermixed with dino's bones
This is proof of his affection
For his private rock collection.

Judging by their leering features
They were not congenial creatures
But would Rex Webb be chummy
If all his rocks were in his tummy?

Rockhounds have not changed so far
From that ancient dinosaur
Only difference I can spot
Is the gizzard we ain't got...

- From the Rock Rustlers News,
      via Ozark Earth Science News.

Original presentation in the ESCONI newsletter.

ESCONI Events January 2021

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

Fri, Jan 8th	ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 PM Zoom - Topic: "New discoveries at the Burgess Shale” by Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron from theUniversity of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).  Zoom link
Sat, Jan 9th	ESCONI Junior Meeting 7:00 PM Zoom - Topic: “My collection” by ESCONI member Scott Galloway.   A Zoom link will be sent via email, contact Scott Galloway ([email protected]) to be included.
Sat, Jan 16th	ESCONI Paleontology Meeting 7:30 PM Zoom - Topic: "Giant Heteromorph Ammonites" by Professor Linda Ivany of Syracuse University. Zoom link

 

Smithsonian: Amateur Fossil Hunter Discovers New ‘Sea Dragon’ Species on British Beach #Dorset #ichthyosaur #fossils #science #jurassic #reptile #England

An artist's illustration of a newly described species of ichthyosaur called Thalassodraco etchesi swimming in the Late Jurassic seas off the coast of England. (Megan Jacobs)

Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the discovery of a new Ichthyosaur in England.  The animal, called Thalassodraco etchesi "Sea Dragon", was discovered on the beach near Dorset, England.  It lived about 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic Period.  The species name etchesi is for the discoverer Steve Etches.  A paper published in PLOS One provides the description of the species.

An amateur fossil hunter scouring an English beach discovered a new species of bug-eyed, barrel-chested marine reptile that patrolled the area’s prehistoric seas roughly 150 million years ago, reports Christa Leste-Lasserre for New Scientist.

When Steve Etches started to extract what he soon recognized as an ichthyosaur fossil from a white band of coastal limestone near Kimmeridge Bay in Dorset, he thought the teeth looked unusual. Unsure of exactly what he’d dug up, Etches sent the mineralized bones off to paleontologists at the University of Portsmouth for a closer look, reports Jack Guy for CNN.

Ichthyosaurs were sleek, dolphin-like reptilian predators with sharp teeth for snagging fish, squid and other prey. After years of examination, the researchers determined this particular specimen was not just a new species, but that it was different enough from other known ichthyosaurs that it merited the creation of a new genus.

Terrible Lizards Podcast Season 2 #dinosaurs #podcast

Season 2 of the Terrible Lizards podcast is up over on libsyn.com.   There's eight plus a bonus episode.  It's a good way to spend your time during these winter Covid months.

Terrible lizards is a podcast about dinosaurs with Dr David Hone and Iszi Lawrence. The podcast is aimed at grown ups but it is clean, so kids can enjoy it too.

• Series Two Trailer
• TLS02E01 Velociraptor
• TLS02E02 Protoceratops
• TLS02E03 Were Dinosaurs cold blooded?
• TLS02E04 The Dinosaur Extinction
• TLS02E05 Dinosaur Food
• TLS02E06 Dinosaur locomotion
• TLS02E07 Bird origins
• TLS02E08 Dinosaur Questions 2
• TLS02 BONUS DINOSAUR! ANKYLOSAURUS and friends.

And, if you didn't listen to season 1, those episodes are available where ever you get your podcasts. 

Mazon Monday #40: Mazon Creek-type fossil assemblages in the U.S. midcontinent Pennsylvanian #fossils #MazonCreek #MazonMonday

This is Mazon Monday post #40.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Back in Mazon Monday #10,  we posted about other siderite concretionary fossil localities from the Pennsylvanian Period.  That list was worldwide.  Here is an interesting paper from 1985 that discusses some of those Mazon Creek-type fossil localities in the central US.  It's curious how many there are. 

This map in the paper is proposing there is a certain type of coastal deposit that leads to fossil assemblages like Mazon Creek.

This excerpt touches on where they believe these deposits are found.

The principal aim of the present paper is to stress the recurrent nature of Mazon Creek-type biofacies in the context of Pennsylvanian facies cyclicity. Included herein are results of preliminary sampling of analogous Pennsylvanian concretion biotas elsewhere in the U.S. Midcontinent Region. Of particular importance is discovery of a new Essex fossil locality in western Missouri as well as additional occurrences of the Braidwood biota from other stratigraphic units within the Illinois and Midcontinent Interior Basins. The distinctive association of these fossils with estuarine—deltaic deposits juxtaposed on coals is discussed and a predictive model for recurrence of this facies is presented. Finally, we wish to emphasize that the Essex fauna was not an aberrant biota of limited temporal value but was, apparently, a stable faunal grouping which persisted through the late Palaeozoic and across the Permo-Triassic boundary.

Of course, the Braidwood and Essex faunas are mentioned.  Additionally, there are discussions of Astoria, IL; Danville, IL; Windsor, MO (Knob Noster); Henryetta and Morris, OK; Sallisaw, OK; Georgetown, IL; and the localities around Terre Haute, IN.

Article

Mazon Creek-type fossil assemblages in the U.S. midcontinent Pennsylvanian: their recurrent character and palaeoenvironmental significance

G. C. Baird, S. D. Sroka, C. W. Shabica and T. L. Beard

Published:17 October 1985

https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1985.0141

Abstract

Terrestrial plants, the non-marine Braidwood Fauna, and the euryhaline Essex Fauna, best known from the Francis Creek Shale Member within the Mazon Creek area of northeastern Illinois, are found to recur in analogous deltaic lithofacies elsewhere both in Illinois and in adjacent states. An important new Essex-type fossil locality is reported from deposits coeval with the Francis Creek Member in Missouri, and occurrences of Braidwood animals from additional stratigraphic units are discussed. These assemblages occur in estuarine-deltaic deposits juxtaposed on coals; the significance of the association of these fossils with transgressive inundation of coastal peat swamps is discussed and a predictive model for the occurrence of Mazon Creek-type assemblages is presented. We believe that fossil associations comparable to those at Mazon Creek, occur in certain coastal deposits ranging in age from Pennsylvanian to, at least, the Triassic.

Footnotes

This text was harvested from a scanned image of the original document using optical character recognition (OCR) software. As such, it may contain errors. Please contact the Royal Society if you find an error you would like to see corrected. Mathematical notations produced through Infty OCR.

Description of plate 1

• Figure 2. Unidentified polychaete with everted proboscis. MCP 268; MCP, Northeastern Illinois University Mazon Creek palaeontology collection. Unnamed shale unit above Croweburg Coal Member, Windsor area, Henry Co., Missouri (magn. x 1.7).
• Figure 3. Eocarid shrimp Belotelson magister. MCP 253. Unnamed shale unit above Croweburg Coal Member, Windsor area, Henry Co., Missouri (magn. x 1.7).
• Figure 4. Bivalve Edmondia sp. MCP 249. Unnamed shale unit above Croweburg Coal Member, Windsor area, Henry Co., Missouri (magn. x 1.4).
• Figure 5. Polyplacophoran Pterochiton. MCP 263. Unnamed shale unit above Croweburg Coal Member, Windsor area, Henry Co., Missouri (magn. x 1.3).
• Figure 6. Protorthoptera (insect). Note branchiopod Leaia in upper right. PE 30369; PE, Field Museum invertebrate paleontology collection. Energy Shale Member. Little Vermilion River locality near Georgetown, Vermilion Co., Illinois (magn. x 2.5).

 

SciNews: 99-Million-Year-Old Fossil Flower Found Encased in Burmese Amber #amber #fossil #fossils #Cretaceous #plant

Valviloculus pleristaminis, flower in lateral view. Image credit: Poinar, Jr. et al., doi: 10.17348/jbrit.v14.i2.1014.

SciNews has a story about a flower preserved in amber.  The fossil flower is called Valviloculus pleristaminis.  It lived about 99 miliion years ago during the Cretaceous Period in what is now Myanmar.  Myanmar has amber deposits that have yielded some amazing finds, including dinosaur tails, feathers, wings, and even a skull.  The discovery is described in a paper in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.

The new fossil flower, named Valviloculus pleristaminis, belongs to the order Laurales, its closest affinities being with the families Monimiaceae and Atherospermataceae.

“This isn’t quite a Christmas flower but it is a beauty, especially considering it was part of a forest that existed almost 100 million years ago,” said lead author Professor George Poinar Jr., a paleontologist in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University.

“The male flower is tiny, about 2 mm across, but it has some 50 stamens arranged like a spiral, with anthers pointing toward the sky.”

“A stamen consists of an anther (pollen-producing head) and a filament (stalk that connects the anther to the flower).”

“Despite being so small, the detail still remaining is amazing.”

“Our specimen was probably part of a cluster on the plant that contained many similar flowers, some possibly female.”

 

PBS Eons: The Triassic Reptile With "Two Faces" #paleontology #china #fossils #triassic #reptiles

 

PBS Eons has a new episode.  This one is about a strange reptile called Adapodentatus "unusual teeth" from the Triassic Lagerstätte of Luoping in China.  It's one of the rare animals that changed its diet from meat to plants.

Figuring out what this creature’s face actually looked like would take paleontologists years. But understanding this weird animal can help us shine a light on at least one way for ecosystems to bounce back from even the worst mass extinction.

 

Merry Christmas from ESCONI

Throwback Thursday #38: Merry Mazon Christmas from ESCONI #MazonCreek #GeorgeLangford #fossils

This is Throwback Thursday #38.  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!

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This is Synde and George Langford's Christmas card in 1939.  The picture is a view of the strip mines about 1 mile south of Wilmington, IL, at a place that was not far from where Cinder Ridge Golf Course is today.   The fossil on the left was identified as Sphenophyllum emarginatum. It was originally named in 1829 by Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart, known as the Father of Paleobotany.  It's a relative of modern day horsetails.  While the one on the right, was identified as Diplothmema zobelli, now known as Sphenopteris spinosa.  Sphenopteris was part of the forest understory.  It was first described in 1841 by Heinrich Goppert.

Smithsonian: The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2020 #dinosaurs #2020 #fossils #science #discoveries

Centrosaurus had the first well-documented case of malignant bone cancer in a non-avian dinosaur. (Fred Wierum via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Smithsonian Magazine has a list of the top 10 dinosaur discoveries of 2020.   What with the pandemic and all, 2020 has been a horrible year for most of us.  However, science matches on and while the vaccine is the biggest scientific advance of 2020, there were a handful of important dinosaur discoveries this year.

• Tiny Fuzzball Shows How Dinosaurs Started Small
• Winner By a Tail (Spinosaurus was a swimmer)
• Dinosaurs Suffered From Cancer, Too
• Dinosaurs Weren’t in Decline When the Asteroid Hit
• Taking a Long Swim (Duckbills in Morocco)
• Baby Titans Had Tiny Horns (Titanosaur babies had horns)
• Were Dinosaur Eggs Soft?
• Enter the Wonderchicken (Origins of flight)
• The Hunt for Dino DNA (Chemical signatures of DNA in hadrosaur bones?)
• Polar Dinosaurs Remained Year Round

 

Trilobite Tuesday #31: Sexual Dimorphism / Trilobite Eggs #trilobites #eggs #fossils #TrilobiteTuesday #fossil

For many types of animals, there are differences between males and females, sometimes it's size, sometimes color, and sometimes structure - either or both soft and hard body structures.  Unfortunately, color and soft-body structures aren't usually preserved and even when it's preserved it doesn't leave enough information in the fossil record.  For size and hard body structures, without other clues, which sometimes from living animals, we still can't know which sex is which.  So, how can we tell the difference for trilobites?  What if you found eggs?  That would be a clue that could help in the determination. There is a good discussion on the Sexual Dimorphism / Trilobite Eggs page over an the AMNH's great Trilobite website.

Hen's teeth… unicorn droppings… trilobite eggs… all apparently stuff of myth, mirth and legend. However, before we place each of these hallowed “rare as” punch-lines into a singular derisive category, let it be stated loudly and proudly that at least one of our entries -- and unquestionably the one that would most intrigue those perusing this section of The Trilobite Files - is very much the real deal. Make no mistake about it; trilobite eggs did indeed exist! 

The fact is that evidence of trilobite eggs has long been sought yet never previously seen in the fossil record. Some scientists have even referred to any such irrefutable indicator of trilobite reproductive behavior as the Holy Grail of invertebrate paleontology. Famed French naturalist Joachim Barrande cited the subject of trilobite eggs as far back as 1872. The legendary Charles Walcott (perhaps best known for his discovery and exploration of British Columbia's storied Burgess Shale) wrote a subsequent paper in 1877, and spent much of his later career searching in vain for signs of trilobite eggs amid the myriad specimens he unearthed during his various excursions across the face of North America. 

Walcott was confident that fossilized evidence existed of these primal arthropod ova. Yet despite his extensive efforts to uncover these elusive signs of trilobite reproductive practices, during his lifetime he was unable to find definitive proof of their presence. But now, nearly 150 years after Barrande and Walcott made their initial forays into trilobite egg research, a recent scientific study (conducted and written by paleontologist Thomas Hegna and amateur enthusiast Markus Martin) has finally offered unassailable confirmation of the long-standing beliefs shared by these paleontological stalwarts. 

This pyritized Triarthrus eatoni trilobite from the famed Beecher Bed of upstate New York shows evidence of gills, claws and clusters of tiny eggs.

This is a close-up view of the underside of the Triarthrus eatoni cephalon showing the small, circular eggs, some in a multi-cellular zygote stage.

Here are a few more scattered eggs amid the claws and gills of the Triarthrus specimen.

A paper from 2017 in the journal Nature describes trilobite eggs. 

 

SciTechDaily: Exquisitely-preserved wolf pup mummy discovered in Yukon permafrost #wolf #puppy #yukon #iceage

This photo shows a closeup of the wolf pup’s head, showing her teeth. Credit: Government of Yukon

SciTechDaily has a story about a mummified wolf puppy found in the Canadian Yukon.  The gray wolf pup lived about 57,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene.  It's 100% intact and very well preserved.  It was discovered by a gold miner that was using water to blast a wall of frozen mud.  All the details are in a paper in the journal Current Biology.

While water blasting at a wall of frozen mud in Yukon, Canada, a gold miner made an extraordinary discovery: a perfectly preserved wolf pup that had been locked in permafrost for 57,000 years. The remarkable condition of the pup, named Zhùr by the local Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people, gave researchers a wealth of insights about her age, lifestyle, and relationship to modern wolves. The findings appear December 21 in the journal Current Biology.

“She’s the most complete wolf mummy that’s ever been found. She’s basically 100% intact–all that’s missing are her eyes,” says first author Julie Meachen, an associate professor of anatomy at Des Moines University. “And the fact that she’s so complete allowed us to do so many lines of inquiry on her to basically reconstruct her life.”

One of the most important questions about Zhùr that the researchers sought to answer was how she ended up preserved in permafrost to begin with. It takes a unique combination of circumstances to produce a permafrost mummy.

“It’s rare to find these mummies in the Yukon. The animal has to die in a permafrost location, where the ground is frozen all the time, and they have to get buried very quickly, like any other fossilization process,” says Meachen. “If it lays out on the frozen tundra too long it’ll decompose or get eaten.”

Mazon Monday #39: Species Spotlight - Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri #MazonCreek #fossils #MazonMonday

This is Mazon Monday post #39.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri is the subject of our Mazon Monday post this week.  M. scheuchzeri is a seed fern (Pteridospermatophyta), which is a group of plants that went extinct during the late Cretaceous Period.  They first show up in the fossil record during the late Devonian.  Specimens are large and tongue shaped.  They can have striking detail, including hair-like structures.... see the examples at the end.

The namesake for M. scheuchzeri is Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, a botanist in the 1700's.  Wikipedia has a good account of its taxonomic history.

The most abundant species of this genus, Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri, has had a long taxonomic history since it was first recognized in fossils found near Oxford, England by Edward Lhuyd in 1669. He referred to these leaves as Phyllites mineralis. It is illustrated and noted in Lhuyd's Lythophylacii Britannici Ichnographia, an early manuscript on English fossils published in 1699 with the financial help of Isaac Newton.^[1][2] The species was further described in the Herbarium Diluvianum written in 1723 by the botanist Johann Jakob Scheuchzer.^[3] Nearly hundred years after Scheuchzer's death, the species was renamed Neuropteris scheuchzeri by professor Hoffmann in Christian Keferstein's 1826 atlas of German Geology, Deutschland, geognostisch-geologisch dargestellt.^[4] In the 1800s, similar fossilized foliage was found in North America. The names Neuropteris cordata var. angustifolia, Neuropteris angustifolia, Neuropteris acutifolia, Neuropteris hirsuta, Neuropteris decipiens, and Odontopteris subcuneata were used for these but are now all considered to be forms of Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri. The genus was taxonomically refined in 1989 through epidermal research led by C. J. Cleal. Based on that work, the genus Neuropteris was divided into four genera, Neuropteris, Macroneuropteris, Neurocallipteris, and Laveineopteris.^[5][6][7]

M. scheuchzeri is fairly common, but can be extremely common is some localities such as the Mazon River in Morris.  In the book "The Keys To Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Plants of the Mazon Creek Area", it was called Neuropteris scheuchzeri.  That was changed in the 1977 due to the frond architecture and cuticle.  It is correctly called Macroneuropteris in the "The Mazon Creek Fossil Flora". 

The text below is from the "The Keys To Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Plants of the Mazon Creek Area" with artwork by Don Auler.

The text from "The Mazon Creek Fossil Flora" by Jack Wittry gives a complete history of its name and useful information to help with identification.

Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri forma decipens Gastaldo, 1977

• 1866. Odontopteris uwortheni Lesquereux. p. 432, pl. 36, fig. 1
• 1879-80. Odontopteris subeuneata Lesquereux.p. 134, pl. 22, figs. 4, 5
• 1879-80. Odontopteris wortheni Lesquereux. p. 130, pl. 22, figs. 1, 2
• 1880. Neuropteris tecipens Lesquereux. p. 93
• 1884. Neuropteris decipens Lesquereux. p. 733, pl. 94, figs. 1, 2
• 1925. Neuropteris decpens Lesquereux. Noé, pl. 24, figs. 2-4; pl. 25; pl. 26; pl. 27, figs. 1, 2; pl. 28, figs. 2-5
• 1958. Neuropteris scheuchzeri Hoffman. Langford, p. 189, figs. 327-329
• 1958. Neuropteris inflata. Langford, (part text) p. 191, figs. 337, (?) 33s
• 1958. Odontopteris subcuneata Lesquereux. p. 238, figs. 426-431
• 1970. Neuropteris decipens Lesquereux. Darrah, p. 94, pl. 1, figs. 1-4; pl. 2, fig. 3; non pl. 3, fig. 2 = Odontopteris aequalis; pl. 5, figs. 1, 2; pl. 6, fig. 2; pl. 8, figs. 1-3; pl. 46, fig. 3; pl. 76, fig. 1
• 1977. Neuropteris scheuchzeri Hoffman. Gastaldo, p. 133-155, fig. 137
• 1979. Neuropteris scheuchzeri Hoffman. Janssen, p. 149, fig. 137
• 1979. Odontopteris subeuneata Lesquereux. Janssen, p. 161, fig. 155
• 1979. Odontopteris wortheni Lesquereux. Janssen, p. 161, fig. 154

DESCRIPTION: The ultimate pinnae are simple or trifoliate. The terminal pinnules are large, highly polymorphic, generally oblong, cordate at the base and slowly narrow to an obtuse apex. The lateral pinnules (see Fig. 4) are orbicular or ovate. When lower surface is preserved,stiff, widely spread hairs are seen (see Fig. 3 inset). The midvein is strong at the base and continues to near the apex. The lateral veins are arched, fine and distinct, forking four, rarely five times, with a vein count at the margin of 30 per centimeter.

REMARKS: Maeroneuropteris scheuchzeri forma decipens is very common, being the most abundant taxon found in the Mazon Creek flora. In the Mazon Creek area it appears to completely replace the typical form of N. scheuchzeri. The question of whether the Mazon Creek form named Neuropteris decipens by Lesquereux is a valid species or is a gigantic but otherwise typical Neuropteris scheuchzeri is difficult. The arguments for making it a junior synonym of N. scheuchzeri are that both are trifoliate, hairy, and large, with veins that arch and fork generally four times and a midvein that extends to the apex; and that they are found with many associated odontopterid forms. Darrah reported that the epidermal cells of N. decipens are very similar though larger, but they have a ratio greater than one would expect for the pinnule size difference. The arguments for retaining N. decipens as a separate species are its larger size, the fact that it is never acuminate at the apex (this is a character in the original figured type specimens of N. scheuchzeri), and that it has coarser venation (30 vs. 40 veins per centimeter at the margin) and more extreme and varied odontopterid forms in association. This last argument is based on Odontopteris aequalis as a growth form of N. decipens. This is not subscribed to here (see O. aequalis). What they both do instead, is produce an almost identical odontopterid form. One is called Odontopteris subcuneata, found in association with N. decipens, and the other is Odontopteris lindleyana, which is found with N. scheuchzeri.

The new genus name Macroneuropteris for scheuchzeri was described on cuticle and frond architecture studies of European examples of N. scheuchzeri. Also see Odontopteris wortheni and Odontopteris subcuneata.

M. scheuchzeri is frequently found with insect damage at the margins. The damaged areas are generally U-shaped and if it was made when the leaf was alive, a whitish line of scar tissue will grow along the injured veins. Insect damage may also be seen as as hole or the removal of just the epidermis layer of one side. When this type of damage happens, the fossil leaf has a fibrous appearance along a section of the margin. damage once thought to be caused by leaf miner insects, is no longer the case and is now believed that the damage occurred by some other means, most likely on the forest floor after the leaf had died.

 

SciNews: Cretaceous Dinosaur Had Impressive Mane and Shoulder Ribbons #dinosaurs #Cretaceous

Life restoration of Ubirajara jubatus. Image credit: Bob Nicholls, paleocreations.com.

SciNews has a story about a new dinosaur from Brazil.   The animal, named Ubirajara jubatus, lived about 110 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period in what is now Brazil.  It was about the size of a chicken.  This dinosaur was collected from the famous Crato Formation in Northeastern Brazil.  It has been described in a paper in the journal Cretaceous Research.

Named Ubirajara jubatus, the ancient animal was chicken-sized with a mane of long fur down its back.

It also had long, flat, stiff shoulder ribbons of keratin, each with a small sharp ridge running along the middle. Its arms were covered in fur-like filaments down to the hands.

“What is especially unusual about the beast is the presence of two very long, probably stiff ribbons on either side of its shoulders that were probably used for display, for mate attraction, inter-male rivalry or to frighten off foe,” said co-author Professor David Martill, a paleontologist in the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences at the University of Portsmouth.

“We cannot prove that the specimen is a male, but given the disparity between male and female birds, it appears likely the specimen was a male, and young, too, which is surprising given most complex display abilities are reserved for mature adult males.”

“Given its flamboyance, we can imagine that the dinosaur may have indulged in elaborate dancing to show off its display structures.”

Ubirajara jubatus’ mane is thought to have been controlled by muscles allowing it to be raised, in a similar way a dog raises its hackles or a porcupine raises its spines when threatened.

PBS Eons: When the Earth Suddenly Stopped Warming #geology #paleontology #climatechange #iceage

 

PBS Eons has a new episode about the end of the most recent ice age.  It's called the Younger Dryas period.  And, it was a time when the global climate cooled after a period of warming.  While we understand what happened, the cause of it has been a mystery.  From ice lakes, to volcanoes, to even a meteorite, this video discusses some of the theories.

For decades, scientists have been studying the cause of the Younger Dryas, and trying to figure out if something like it could happen again. And it turns out that what caused this event is the subject of a heated debate.

 

Fossil Friday #36: Diplazites unita #MazonCreek #FossilFriday #fern #fossil #pennsylvanian #fossils

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #36.  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!

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Today, we have more Mazon Creek plants.  These are several specimens of Diplazites unita from the collection of Marie Angkuw and Andrew Young.  Both are ESCONI members.  If you need an identification of a Mazon Creek fossil, Andrew is one of the best.  He is a professional artist and has been constructing a new website of his work.  Additionally, he was one of the editors of the last two ESCONI Associates books - "The Mazon Creek Fossil Fauna" and "The Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek" both by Jack Wittry.  Marie claims to never find anything good, but from what I've seen that's certainly not the case!  They have been ESCONI members and Mazon collectors for more than 10 years.

All of these were collected from the Mazon River.  The first stunning specimen is terminal foliage.

Next is a delightful fertile form.

And, lastly is a section of mature foliage.

 

Throwback Thursday #37: Revisiting the Field Trip to Pint's Quarry in Raymond, Iowa on May 8th 1977 #Devonian #fossils #minerals #fluorite

This is Throwback Thursday #37.  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!

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For Throwback Thursday #3, we recalled a field trip to Pint's Quarry in Raymond, Iowa on May 8th, 1977.  Today, we revisit that post and provide more details.  The pictures from that trip came from Kathy Dedina and her sister Judy.  As noted previously, they both appear in the first picture.  Note the old cars in the pictures and unlike in the 1950's, everyone is wearing hard hats.

To complete the story, I looked in the old newsletters and found the announcement for the trip.  Unfortunately, there was no field trip report.  But, here is the field trip announcement in the April 1977 newsletter.  There were three stops on the trip, which spanned the whole weekend.

After the trip was scheduled, there was a little trouble as the field trip leader became ill as noted in the announcement in the May 1977 edition of the newsletter.  I believe he recovered as he is mentioned in later newsletters.

Here are the pictures from Kathy.  At the end, are some specimen pictures.  Unfortunately, those specimens are not from ESCONI members, but from the John Betts Fine Minerals, Online Mineral Museum. 

Minerals from Pint's Quarry are fairly common online.  There are a bunch on this page.  And, a paper describing minerals found there is here.

Calcite with Pyrite and Marcasite inclusions from Pint's Quarry, Raymond, Black Hawk County, Iowa

Calcite, Fluorite, Millerite, Pyrite from Iowa

Fluorite from Pint's Quarry, Raymond, Black Hawk County, Iowa

Fluorite on Calcite from Pint's Quarry, Raymond, Black Hawk County, Iowa

Fluorite on fossilized Coral from Pint's Quarry, Raymond, Black Hawk County, Iowa

Marcasite with Barite from Pint's Quarry, Raymond, Black Hawk County, Iowa

 

SciNews: Non-Avian Dinosaurs Were Not in Decline Prior to Their Extinction #dinosaurs #extinction #MassExtinction #Cretaceous

Bonsor et al. refute claim that non-avian dinosaurs were in decline before the Chicxulub asteroid impact. Image credit: Sergey Krasovskiy.

SciNews has a story about the extinction of the dinosaurs.  One long controversial point around the K-Pg mass extinction, which took out the non-avian dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, has been whether their diversity was in decline before the meteor struck in Chicxulub.    This is often sited in arguments about whether the volcanic eruptions that created the Deccan traps in India were the real driving force behind the extinction.  Now, a new study in the journal Royal Society Open Science finds that the non-avian dinosaurs weren't in decline.

In order to address this question, Joe Bonsor from the University of Bath and the Natural History Museum, London, and his colleagues collected a set of different dinosaur family trees and used statistical modeling to assess if each of the main dinosaur groups was still able to produce new species at this time.

They used statistical methods to overcome sampling biases, looking at the rates of speciation of dinosaur families rather than simply counting the number of species belonging to the family.

They found that dinosaurs were not in decline before the asteroid hit, contradicting some previous studies.

They also suggest that had the impact not occurred, dinosaurs might have continued to be the dominant group of land animals on the planet.

“Previous studies done by others have used various methods to draw the conclusion that dinosaurs would have died out anyway, as they were in decline towards the end of the Cretaceous period,” Bonsor said.

“However, we show that if you expand the dataset to include more recent dinosaur family trees and a broader set of dinosaur types, the results don’t actually all point to this conclusion — in fact only about half of them do.”

“The main point of our paper is that it isn’t as simple as looking at a few trees and making a decision.”

“The large unavoidable biases in the fossil record and lack of data can often show a decline in species, but this may not be a reflection of the reality at the time.”

“Our data don’t currently show they were in decline, in fact some groups such as hadrosaurs and ceratopsians were thriving and there’s no evidence to suggest they would have died out 66 million years ago had the extinction event not happened.”

ESCONI January 2021 General Meeting - January 8th, 2021 at 8:00 PM via Zoom - "New discoveries at the Burgess Shale” #archaeology #fossils #BurgessShale #Cambian

 

The speaker at our January 2021 meeting via Zoom will be Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron from the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Dr. Caron studies the Burgess Shale, the Cambrian Explosion, and the origin of animals. The title of his program is "New discoveries at the Burgess Shale".

Here's a link to his page at ROM: https://www.rom.on.ca/en/collections-research/rom-staff/jean-bernard-caron

Here’s a link to a short video on YouTube narrated by Dr. Caron about the Burgess Shale animal called Hallucigenia.

Mazon Monday #38: Carboniferous Plants in Siderite Nodules #fossils #plants #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #Pennsylvanian #Carboniferous

This is Mazon Monday post #38.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Recently, I ran across this interesting paper from the journal Acta Palaeobotanica back in 2012.  It's called "Carboniferous plants preserved within sideritic nodules – a remarkable state of preservation providing a wealth of information" by Grzegorz Pacyna and Danuta Zdebska of the Department of Palaeobotany and Palaeoherbarium, Institute of Botany, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.

ABSTRACT. Fossil plants preserved within sidertitic nodules have been known from Europaean and North American Carboniferous coal measures since the early 19th Century. However, only a few of them have been described thoroughly palaeobotanically, mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries; thus their taxonomy often requires revision. Animal fossils preserved within sidertitic nodules beside plant fossils became a base of the description of many rare new taxa of animals undiscovered in other modes of preservation. Published hitherto works about such preserved flora indicate that plants preserved within concretions represent rare taxa, not known in other modes of preservation. The dissimilarities in composition of floras preserved in ironstone concretions when compared to those from surrounding sediments likely results from the process of concretion formation which selectively influences the preservation of small, delicate plant organs. The most famous fl oras preserved within concretions come from Mazon Creek in the USA and Coseley in Great Britain. These localities were the source of many previously unknown taxa with important evolutionary significance. The new flora preserved within concretions has been discovered recently in Poland in Sosnowiec (Upper Silesia). It contains new, hitherto unknown taxa particularly plant reproductive organs. Comparison of the taxonomy and taphonomy of the ironstone concretion flora from Sosnowiec with other similar assemblages from the Carboniferous of Europe and North America has reveals many similarities stemming from a common mode of preservation. Due to the exceptional three-dimensional preservation of the plant fossils, in particular reproductive organs key to the understanding of evolutionary relationships, the locality at Sosnowiec can be regarded as an important new Lagerstätte, and the first such site recognized in Poland. The use of pioneering techniques in high-resolution X-ray microtomography promises to yield yet further information on the biota of this new locality.

KEYWORDS: plant fossils preserved within sideritic nodules, Upper Carboniferous, Sosnowiec, Coseley, Mazon Creek, FossilLagerstätten, Konservat-Lagerstätten

The paper is a survey of Pennsylvanian sideritic localities.  There is a history and description of each site with a discussion of similarities and differences between the localities.  The following list are sites discussed with a concentration on the Sosnowiec, Poland site.

• Mazon Creek / Francis Creek Shale, Will and Grundy County, IL, 307 mya
• Energy Shale, Carterville and Georgetown, IL., 306.5 mya
• Mansfield formation, Pike County, IN., 315-320 mya
• Chieftain No. 20 Flora / Dugger Formation, Vigo County, IN., 305.5 mya
• Stanley Cemetery Flora / Brazil Formation, Green and Vigo County, IN., 313 mya
• Dunerath, IA
• Knob Noster, Missouri, Knob Noster, MO., 309 mya
• Windsor, Missouri
• Okmulgee, Henryetta and Morris, Okmulgee, OK., 309 mya
• Sallisaw, Oklahoma (Undescribed)
• Crockhey, United Kingdom, 315 mya
• Coseley, United Kingdom, ~300  mya
• Bickershaw, United Kingdom, 313 - 304 mya (Westphalian, Upper Carboniferous)
• Foord Seam Shale, Stellarton Basin, Nova Scotia, Canada, 313 - 304 mya (Westphalian, Upper Carboniferous)
• Sosnowiec, Poland, 313 - 304 mya (Westphalian, Upper Carboniferous)
• Montceau-les-Mines, France, 313 - 304 mya (Westphalian, Upper Carboniferous)

The dates above come from the Mazon Monday #5 post.  In that, we referenced a paper by Baird, Sroka, and Shabica in 1985, entitled "Mazon Creek-Type Fossil Assemblages in the U.S. Midcontinent Pennsylvanian".  It did not have any discussion of sites in Europe.

There isn't much information on the web about the site in Poland, but I did find a Polish geology blog that seems to be about the site at Sosnowiec.

Pictures of fossils from Sosnowiec are somewhat scarce on the web.  However, there are some and they look very familiar.