Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

ESCONI September 2021 Paleontology Meeting - September 18th, 2021 at 7:30 PM - "Show and Tell" #fossil #paleontology #fossilcollecting #nature

The September 2021 Paleontology Meeting will be held at the College of Dupage in room 1038B of the Tech Ed (TEC) Building (Map).  We will also provide a Zoom link for those that can't attend in person.  The topic of the meeting is "Show and Tell".  The "Show and Tell" theme has been a tradition for the first meeting back after the summer hiatus.  But, in the past, it was called "Brag Night"  So, bring your fossils and tell us some fish... i mean fossil stories!  There will be knowledgeable people that might be able to identify what you found.

This is our first in person meeting since the start of the Covid Pandemic in March 2020.  Masks are required for those in attendance.

Here are some photos from previous "Show and Tell" nights.

A Huge, Unknown Cambrian Bug Fossil Has Been Found in The Eerie Burgess Shale #fossil #paleontology #burgessshale #canada #cambrian

Fossilized Titanokorys carapace. (Jean-Bernard Caron/Royal Ontario Museum)

Science Alert has a story about a new arthropod discovered in the Burgess Shale.  The Burgess Shale is a fossil deposit located in British Columbia which gives visibility into the explosion of life during the Cambrian Period more that 500 million years ago.  This new animal, Titanokorys gainesi, was more than a foot long, which was large for the time period.  A paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science describes this new research.

Titanokorys gainesi, newly discovered in the Burgess Shale fossil formation, would have been a Cambrian colossus, measuring a gobsmacking estimated half a meter (1.64 feet) in length. That may seem small to us now, but at a time when almost everything else was less than a fifth of that size, it's extraordinary.

"The sheer size of this animal is absolutely mind-boggling," said paleontologist Jean-Bernard Caron of the Royal Ontario Museum. "This is one of the biggest animals from the Cambrian period ever found."

The Cambrian period was a momentous time in Earth's history. Around 541 million years ago, over a period of about 25 million years, almost all major forms of animal life suddenly appeared on the scene in an event known as the Cambrian explosion. Nothing else like it has been seen before or since.

 

Fossil Friday #73: Mazon Creek Pill Millipede #fossil #MazonCreek #FossilFriday #paleontology #illinois #millipede

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #73.  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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Mazon Creek is back this week and this time we have a millipede.  This animal is referred to as a pill bug or a pill millipede.  I'm using pill millipede this time, because that makes our contributor a double repeat.  Connor Puritz sent us some photos of a specimen of the millipede Euphoberia from the Mazon River back in Fossil Friday #24.  Now, he's back with a Amynilyspes wortheni, which is a pill millipede!  Awesome specimen, with nice detail!  Thanks for the contribution, Connor!

Throwback Thursday #75: Looking Back at ESCONI September 2021 #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday

This is Throwback Thursday #75.  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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25 Years Ago – September 1996

• The ESCONI “Plant Life Through the Ages” display was exhibited at the MWF Convention in July of 1996. The exhibit is composed of 22 restorations and 3 cases of fossils representing the plant kingdom from simple algae to modern, complex forms. The first fossil restorations for this were begun in 1964, with more added in 1990.
• Banquet tables at the MWF convention had centerpieces including a reconstruction of the Tully Monster cast in silver. Yes, I said silver. The silver Tullies were given away at the end of the banquet.
• The topic of the General Meeting was "The Mazon Creek Project" given by Dr. Christopher T. Ledvina with the Department of Earth Science at Northeastern Illinois University and Curator of the Mazon Creek Project.
• Jean Reynolds, Editor of the ESCONI newsletter "The Earth Science News" won 1st place at the MWF Convention.

50 Years Ago – September 1971

• An item in the bulletin mentions very large quartz crystals on display at “Dogpatch, USA” an amusement park near Harrison, Arkansas. Several crystals are in excess of 1000 pounds! The park closed in 1993.
• Another item describes compressing smog until it is hard, then cutting and polishing it, and finally setting it into a ring. From what I see on the internet, this is still done today.
• The Midwest Federation convention was held on July 22 – 25, 1971 at the Richland County Fairgrounds in Mansfield, Ohio, with attendance over 12,000! For comparison, the CGMA show in May had attendance of 2800.
• The Labor Day Field Trip included stops at Gray's Quarry in Hamilton, IL on Saturday for geodes and minerals, micro geodes and trilobites in Iowa on Sunday, and Astoria for fossil concretions on Monday.  Wow!  That was some field trip!

ESCONI September 2021 General Meeting - September 10th, 2021 at 8:00 PM via Zoom - "Exploring evolutionary patterns and processes in trilobites” #fossil #trilobite #paleontology #cambrian

The speaker at our September 10th general meeting will be Dr. Mark Webster from the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. The topic will be Cambrian trilobites.

 

Here's a link to his page at the university: https://geosci.uchicago.edu/people/mark-webster/

 

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New Mosasaur Species Uncovered in Kansas #fossil #paleontology #mosasaur #kansas #cretaceous

A life reconstruction of the plioplatecarpine mosasaur Angolasaurus bocagei, alongside the turtle Angolachelys mbaxi. Image credit: Henry Sharpe / CC BY-SA 4.0.

SciNews has a story about a new Mosasaur found in Kansas.  The animal, named Ectenosaurus clidastoides, lived during the Cretaceous Period about 80 million years ago in what is now western Kansas.  Details were published in a paper in the journal Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.

The newly-identified mosasaur species lived during the Late Cretaceous epoch, some 80 million years ago.

The ancient creature inhabited the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow body of marine water that divided the North American continent into two distinct landmasses.

Named Ectenosaurus everhartorum, it is only the second species in the Ectenosaurus genus.

The marine animal was about 5.5 m (18 feet) long, and resembled the false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii).

“If Ectenosaurus clidastoides with its long, slender jaws resembles a gharial crocodile, the new species is closer to a false gharial crocodile with notably blunter jaws,” said Dr. Takuya Konishi, a paleontologist in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Cincinnati.

 

Mazon Monday #76: Spring Braceville Field Trip Report by AJ Templer #fossil #paleontology #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #carboniferous #illinois

This is Mazon Monday post #76.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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ESCONI's mission is one of education and we love to get the kids interested in our Earth Science passions.  In this case, it's paleontology and we are hunting for Mazon Creek fossils.  In order to get us ready for the Braceville Field Trips on September 12th and 13th, we have a report for the spring Braceville trip from 8 year old AJ Templer.  AJ attended the spring outing with his family.  And, from his account had a great time... Oh, and, it was his birthday present!

The introduction of this report is by Andrew Young.  Thanks AJ and hope to see you and many others this weekend!

Introduction –

In September of 2020, ESCONI hosted its club field trip to the Braceville gob pile, one of the few public events held during that first challenging year with Covid-19. Masked and socially distanced as a precaution, participants were eager to be outdoors and to engage one another after months of relative isolation. From the outset, it felt like an important day. To one young collector, it was extra-special.

Eight-year-old AJ Templer and his family are relatively new members of ESCONI. AJ and his younger brother, Micah, are also part of the club’s Juniors program. They love turtles and tortoises – with eight living species (ten individuals) sharing the Templer home – and fossils, especially dinosaurs, even coming up with their own board game called Tyrannosaurus Takedown. This day of hunting Carboniferous fossils at Braceville was to be AJ’s surprise birthday celebration.

AJ wrote a report for school about his exciting experience and below is a transcript, including photos of the day and the first of four handwritten pages. (- A.Young)

AJ Templer –

AJ’s field report, Page 1 of 4.

I was getting ready for bed. That was the day before my birthday. I was so excited for my birthday. I remember when it was 2 months away and now it’s today. And then I went to bed. Then I woke up and I said, “It’s my birthday.” Then I went downstairs and my mom said, “Look by the front door.” Then I saw bags that looked like fossil hunting bags. And they said our names on it. I looked inside. There were fossil digging tools. That’s when I knew we were digging for fossils. And then we brought our bags in to the car. Then Mom told me that  fossil digging only happens once a year. And it was exactly on my birthday. It was an hour to get there. I couldn’t wait to get there. I knew we were digging for fossils but I didn’t know what we were digging for before we got there.

AJ and Micah at the base of the spoil.

We got our tools and we brought them all over to a guy that works there. He said how there was a big flood a long time ago. And how people lived there and died while digging in a  mine looking for gold. Now you’re not allowed to go in that water or else you will go to jail. We got there with our dog. She loves digging so much. When we got there I was so excited and happy. It was a big sand mountain. And it was really steep. And messy.

AJ climbing up a gully carved by erosion.

Then we started digging. Then me and my brother went to the top. My mom is scared of heights so she stayed down there with my dad. I climb to the top with my bother and dad. Me and my brother made a little seat to sit on. My brother wanted my seat and I said No. But I did say I could make the seat bigger and wider. And I did. But it took so long my brother  went down. On our way down we found fossils that slided down. And we picked them up. But it was hard to [get] them cause they were sliding and we were sliding too. I tripped on a hill on the way down. But I was all right. Then I climbed to try to get over it but it was hard because we had buckets with fossils in it.

AJ (foreground) and Micah excavating for fossil concretions.

The fossils look like eggs. And we have to soaking them in water and freezing them. Then crack them right in the center. But they’re older than dinosaurs so you have to be careful not to break them. Then we see the fossils inside. That is how you get fossils.

The Templer family filling their buckets with open fossils.

Century-Old Levi’s Jeans Discovered in Abandoned Mine #mining #ghosttown #archaeology #silver #california #levis

Over on yahoo!life, there's a story about a discovery in an old abandoned silver mine in a ghost town in California.  The ghost town is called "Cerro Gordo".  Brent Underwood is living there and working to restore it to its past glory.  His Youtube channel "Ghost Town Living" documents his progress over the last 18 months.  Recently, he was exploring the mine and found some 100 year old Levi's, which believe it or not, can be very valuable!

Brent Underwood, a YouTuber “living in an abandoned ghost town, trying to bring it back to life,” loves to delve into the past. On his channel, Ghost Town Living, he details his attempts at making the abandoned ghost town, Cerro Gordo, habitable again. According to Underwood, Cerro Gordo was “established in 1865 and went on the be the most prosperous silver mine in California’s history.” Once the boom of silver ran out, the inhabitants of the town abandoned it. But not without leaving behind salient pieces of history. In one of his recent trips into the mine at Cerro Gordo, which we first saw on Laughing Squid, Underwood discovered a treasure he’d been hunting for 18 months. This treasure: a pair of century-old Levi’s.

PBS Eons: The Creature That Stumped Darwin #mammals #paleontology #southamerica #fossil

 

PBS Eons has a new episode.  This one is about Toxidon and its evolutionary history.

Toxodon was one of the last members of a lineage that vanished 11,000 years ago after thriving in isolation for millions of years. And its fossils would inspire a revolutionary thinker to tackle a bigger mystery than Toxodon itself: evolution.

Fossil Friday #72: Galena Fossils #fossil #illinois #paleontology #FossilFriday #ordovician #cephalopod #gastropod

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #72.  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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We are stepping away from Mazon Creek for this week, but we'll be back very soon with some very interesting specimens.  For today, Western Illinois and Galena are the place and the Ordovician Period is the time.  Tom Brashers-Krug sent me some photos of some excellent fossils he found while on vacation in the Galena Territories.  The photos below are of a Maclurites and a Hormotoma he found in a road cut east of Galena.  He posted a a great trip report in a thread entitled "Productive Galena, Illinois and Graf, Iowa Excursions" over on the Fossil Forum.  Here is a summary of the story he sent me.  Awesome finds and great story, thanks for the contribution, Tom!

I had some fortuitous success on my vacation to Galena. We stayed in an AirBnB in the Galena Territories about 8 miles East of Galena proper. There was a small road cut on a road about half a mile from where we were staying. I spent several hours poking around there. The road cut rock was likely from the Galena Group, possibly the Milbrig k-Bentonite bed. 

 

Most of the time was spent searching, but I found two really cool fossil molds: a Maclurites (I think it’s either a magnus or bigsbyi.), and a Hormotoma. 

Maclurites

 

Hormotoma

Throwback Thursday #74: This Week In Illinois History: The Tully Monster (August 31, 1989) #history #ThrowbackThursday #TBT #illinois #MazonCreek #fossil #TullyMonster

This is Throwback Thursday #74.  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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An artist’s rendition of Tullimonstrum gregarium, aka, the Tully Monster.  Nobu Tamura ([email protected]), Http://Spinops.Blogspot.Com/2016/03/Tullimonstrum-Gregarum.Html

This week (actually August 31st) is a birthday of sorts.  It was 32 years ago that the Tully Monster, Tullymonstrum gregarum became the State Fossil of Illinois.  Governor James Thompson signed legislation making it official in 1989.  Here's a nice story by Northern Public Radio.  Back in Flashback Friday #9, we posted information about Francis Tully, an amateur fossil collector and longtime ESCONI member.  Unfortunately, he didn't live to see it as he died in 1987 at the age of 75.

Illinois' state bird is the northern cardinal. The state vegetable is corn, of course. We even have an obvious state snack: popcorn. But did you know that Illinois has a state fossil? And it’s a weird one.

On August 31, 1989, Governor James Thompson signed legislation making the Tullimonstrum gregarium, or the Tully Monster, the official state fossil.

The Tully Monster is named after the amateur fossil collector who discovered it in 1955, Francis Tully. He found the bizarre fossil in the Mazon Creek fossil beds of northern Illinois. These fossil-rich beds contain a mixture of sea life from the carboniferous period, 300 million years ago.

The fossil looked like a long tube with two fins on its tail and a thin, claw-like proboscis with sharp teeth protruding from its head. At the base of this proboscis is a bar-like organ tipped by two eyes.

Additional fossil records show that Tully Monsters grew between 3 and 15 inches. But the Mazon Creek area could have been a breeding ground. The creatures may have grown larger elsewhere.

Tully took his find to Chicago’s Field Museum. Not only had they never seen this creature, they couldn’t agree how to classify it. Was it a mollusk? An arthropod? Paleontologists couldn’t even decide if it was a worm or a fish.

Its classification remained a mystery until 2016 when scientists determined that the Tully Monster was a vertebrate, and possibly an early ancestor of the lamprey.

Today, thousands of Tully Monster fossils have been found but only in Illinois.

ESCONI Field Trip to a Rockford Quarry Saturday, October 2, 2021, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM #ordovician #quarry #fossil #fieldtrip #illinois #rockford #limestone

Rockford Quarry Field Trip

There will be a field trip to a quarry near Rockford, Illinois on Saturday, October 2, 2021, from 9AM to 12 noon.

The rock is Ordovician, Galena Group. This is a "hard-rock" quarry (dolomite). There may also be glacial deposits, including gravel, in place (not washed and processed) making it possible to find things like native copper. No guarantee of course...

If you are sick, have symptoms of COVID or have tested positive recently, DON”T COME.

Rules

1. Everyone in your group MUST be an ESCONI member as of Sept 30, 2021.
2. Everyone in your group MUST be at least 18 years of age.
3. Everyone MUST have and wear a hard hat, safety vest, and sturdy boots while in the quarry. No sandals, tennis shoes, and the like. No claw hammers or roofing hammers - use only rock hammers. If you plan on hammering then bring eye protection and wear it.
4. This is a quarry and social distancing should not be a problem. Please bring a mask and wear it if you are close to others.
5. Sign up by sending me (Dave) an email with the number of members attending and their names. My email is [email protected] No phone calls please.
6. I will acknowledge by return email. If you don't get a reply in 24 hours, send it again!
7. Maximum attendance by ESCONI members is 15. This is a shared trip with the Rock River Valley Gem and Mineral Society.
8. Please review the Code of Ethics and Conduct on the ESCONI website. You will be expected to check-in at the quarry. By doing so you agree to follow the Code of Ethics and the conditions on the ESCONI Liability and Waiver form (sent by email to those that sign up). You do not need to print out the ESCONI waiver form, just know what you’re agreeing to. There may be an  additional waiver from the quarry.

The address of the quarry will be sent to those that sign up a few days before the trip.

I will distribute the waiver forms by email to those signed up just before the trip.

Questions? Send me an email...