This is Throwback Thursday #52. 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 the one year anniversary of the Throwback Thursday feature. We hope you are enjoying it. If you include Flashback Friday, this is our longest running feature. Please send us your feedback and any ideas for future posts. If you have some old, or even not so old, photos or a story you'd like to share, please pass it along. We are always looking for content!
This week we are looking back at the list of ESCONI field trips of 2002. Here is the original page, which has been preserved in the Wayback Machine.
In 2002, there were 14 field trips... that's a lot of field trips! If you include all days to Braceville as they have here, we tend to have 10 or 11 trips in recent years. In 2002, there were not 1, not 2, but 3 trips to Braceville, which counted as 6 days. I do remember the March Braceville trips, they weren't always cold, but they were always muddy. From the newsletters, Braceville was moved to April or May by 2007. We still visit Braceville, although you can still find good Mazon Creek fossils, it is unfortunately not the hill it once was.
Lone Star Quarry in Olgesby, IL was a recurring destination for ESCONI field trips. The last one was around 2008. It was an easy place to collect Pennsylvanian marine animals. If you like brachiopods, you could collect them by the bucket load! There is an effort to convert the closed quarry into a fossil park.
The other regular visit on that list is Sheffler's Geodes. ESCONI would visit that location or Jacob's Geodes as part of the MAPS show in Macomb, IL in March or April each year. We looked at past geode trip in Throwback Thursday #14.
Flourite colors from an ESCONI Field Trip to Clement Mineral Museum in 2002
Braceville hill in 2020
Collecting Geodes at Sheffler's Geode Mine, March 28, 2004
FIELD TRIPS 2002 ARCHIVE
March 23,24 Braceville, Illinois 9:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M. Mazon Creek Fossils.
Field Trip #1 - March 23
Field Trip #2 - March 24
Field Trip #3 Lone Star Quarry, Olgesby, Illinois
April 7, 2002 Sunday, 9:00 A.M. - 2:00 A.M.
Field Trip #4 - Collecting Geodes at Sheffler's Geode Mine
Saturday April 13 8:00 A.M.
Field Trip #5 - Collecting Fluorite at the Columbia Mine, Marion, Kentucky
Saturday, Sunday April 27-28
Field Trip #6 - May 18 Braceville, Illinois 9:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M. Mazon Creek Fossils.
Field Trip #7 - May 19 Braceville, Illinois 9:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M. Mazon Creek Fossils.
Field Trip #8 - June 9 Illinois Cement Quarry, LaSalle, Illinois
Sunday 8:00 A.M.
Field Trip #9 June 10 - 21, 2002 Summer Field Trip to Nebraska / South Dakota
Field Trip #10 August 2-4, 2002 Ishpeming, Michigan
27th Annual Ishpeming Rock and Mineral Club Show
Ishpeming Elks Club Hall
597 Lake Shore Drive
Ishpeming, Michigan
Free Admission
August 2 - Field Trips to Local Quarries for micromount. Hard Hat and Goggles required.
August 3 - Show with demonstrations, display, dealers and silent auction
9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (All times are Eastern Daylight Savings Time)
August 4 - Field Trip to Lindberg Quarry for Kona Dolomite. Hard Hat and Goggles required.
Field Trip #11 Aug 31, Sept 1,2 2002 (Labor Day) 9:30 A.M. Prairie DuChien - Collecting Lake Superior Agates
Field Trip #12,13 SEPT 28-29, 2002 (Sat/Sunday) Braceville, Illinois - Collecting Mazon Creek Fossils
Field Trip #14 Lone Star Quarry, Olgesby, Illinois - Fossils
October 13, 2002 Sunday, 9:00 A.M. - 2:00 A.M.
