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 esconi.info@gmail.com. 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!
