Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

ESCONI January 2022 General Meeting - January 14th, 2022 at 8:00 PM via Zoom - "Through the Ages: How we Date Rocks and Geologic Processes” #geology #rocks #dating #time

The January 2022 General Meeting will be held at 8:00 PM on January 14th, 2022 via Zoom.  Our speaker is Dr. Alyssa Abbey from California State University Long Beach.  The title of her talk is “Through the Ages: How we Date Rocks and Geologic Processes”.  

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Mazon Monday #94: Species Spotlight - Calamites cistii #fossil #MazonMonday #paleontology #MazonCreek #pennsylvanian #illinois #plant

This is Mazon Monday post #94.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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By Falconaumanni - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56797814

For this week, we are looking at Calamites, which is a genus of extinct arborescent (tree-like) horsetails.  They are sphenopsids.  Modern horsetails, genus Equistem, are fairly closely related.  Some of these Carboniferous plants could grow to heights of more than 100 feet (30+ meters).  Additionally, they were a key component of the forest understory and make a large part of Pennsylvanian coal deposits.  There are a few species of Calamites known in the Mazon Creek biota - including Calamites cistii, .  Also, note that while Calamites refers to the stem of sphenopsids, Annularia (see Mazon Monday #60), Asterophyllites, and Equisetites are other parts of the same group of plants.  George Langford has a great picture that details the individual parts.

This way of describing plants with different species for each part is called Form Genera.  It's due to the often fragmentary fossil preservation of plants.  A "Key" specimen has multiple associated plant parts and is used to tie the separate parts together.  The separate species names for plant parts allows paleontologists to discuss the various fossils that are found.  There is a good explanation in the concept in the "Keys to Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Plants of the Mazon Creek Area".

THE CONCEPT OF FORM-GENERA IN IDENTIFYING FOSSIL PLANTS

Biologists and paleobiologists who study and classify organisms often find biological structures that cannot be confidently assigned to any known organismic species. Such structures -- mostly parts, life-stages, or sedimentary traces of organisms contain considerable biological information and provide insights into the morphology, life-style, and behavior of past (and present) species. For example, for many present-day fungi, both the asexual and sexual stages of the life-cycle is known, but each stage cannot be causally linked to the other. These stages may have separate, taxonomic names, yet belong to the same species. Similarly, trace fossils distinctively-shaped impressions and burrows indicating particular behavioral habits are given separate taxonomic names, and are not assuredly linked to any known fossil species.

And so it is with fossil plants, in which particular organs are preserved in isolation from other organs belonging to the same plant species. Thus plant leaves, roots, stems, fruits, seeds, and even pollen or spores, have separate taxonomic names. These names are termed "form genera". Several form-genera, each designating a specific part of the plant, can refer to a single fossil plant species, but it is often impossible to know which leaf-genus is associated with which seed-genus or pollen-genus, and so on.

Furthermore, in some cases it is clear that structures assigned to one form were actually produced by two or more different kinds of plants, e.g., Lepidophylloides produced by both Sigillaria and Lepidodendron. Therefore, even when we can demonstrate, or hypothesize, that two or more form-genera are actually part of a single plant species, we cannot be certain that all fragmentary specimens of the genera are correctly treated in this way. For these reasons, form-genera are an indispensable, if slightly confusing, tool in identifying fossil plants.

For this post, we are looking at the stem of Calamites, of which Calamites cistii is the most common.  Here is its entry in "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek".

Calamites cistii Brongniart, 1828

1828. Calamites cistii Brongniart: p. 129, pl. 20
1879-80. Calamites cistii Brongniart; Lesquereux: p.
1899. Calamites cistii Brongniart; White: p. 149 27, pl. 1, fig. 6
1958. Calamites cisti Brongniart; Langford: p. 31, fig. 22
1969. Calamites cisti Brongniart; Crookall: p. 639, pl.
1969. Calamites cistii Brongniart; Darrah: p. 171, 123, fig. 1
1979. Calamites cisti Brongniart; Janssen: p. 80, fig. 61

DESCRIPTION: The nodes are not contracted and are regularly spaced along the stem. The internodes are longer than they are wide. The ribs are thin, straight, half-round at their ends, and separated by striate furrows. The vascular canal scars, if present, are small, round, and indistinct. As with all calamite stems, only fossils formed as pith casts will have vascular canal scars. All figures shown here are of outer surfaces of stems.

REMARKS: Calamites in general are common, and Calamites cistii is the most frequently found species of this group in the Mazon Creek flora. It differs from Calamites suckowi in its more consistent internode length and narrower ribs.

Specimens

From George's Basement (George Langford)

E.O. Wilson’s lifelong passion for ants helped him teach humans about how to live sustainably with nature #EOWilson #biology #conservation #evolution

E.O. Wilson reflects on insect society, human society and the importance of biodiversity in 2009.

The Conversation has a story about E. O. Wilson, who he was and his contributions to the world.   Professor of Comparative Zoology at Harvard and a giant in the world of evolutionary biology, Wilson died on December 26th, 2021 at age 92.  His biggest message was for conservation of the natural world.

E. O. Wilson was an extraordinary scholar in every sense of the word. Back in the 1980s, Milton Stetson, the chair of the biology department at the University of Delaware, told me that a scientist who makes a single seminal contribution to his or her field has been a success. By the time I met Edward O. Wilson in 1982, he had already made at least five such contributions to science.

Wilson, who died Dec. 26, 2021 at the age of 92, discovered the chemical means by which ants communicate. He worked out the importance of habitat size and position within the landscape in sustaining animal populations. And he was the first to understand the evolutionary basis of both animal and human societies.

Each of his seminal contributions fundamentally changed the way scientists approached these disciplines, and explained why E.O. – as he was fondly known – was an academic god for many young scientists like me. This astonishing record of achievement may have been due to his phenomenal ability to piece together new ideas using information garnered from disparate fields of study.

Paleontologists Identify New Species of Long-Necked Dinosaur #fossil #dinosaur #paleontology #sauropod

Holotype right forelimb of Rhomaleopakhus turpanensis with individual elements in approximate anatomical position, shown in anterior view. Scale bar – 200 mm. Image credit: Upchurch et al., doi: 10.1080/02724634.2021.1994414.

SciNews has a story about a new species of dinosaur.  The new sauropod species is named Rhomaleopakhus turpanensis and it was identified from fossils found about 30 years ago.  The animal lived about 155 million years ago during the Late Jurassic Period.  All the details can be found in a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleotology.

It was a member of the family Mamenchisauridae, a group of sauropod (herbivorous long-necked) dinosaurs known from the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous of Asia and Africa.

“These dinosaurs added extra vertebrae to their necks to elongate them, and in addition to this made each individual neck vertebra longer,” Professor Paul Barrett, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London and the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum, London, said in a statement.

“We don’t know why they did this, but we presume it was either a feeding adaptation or sexual selection.”

Fossil Friday #90: Asterophyllites equisetiformis #fossil #paleontology #horsetail #MazonCreek #FossilFriday #illinois

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #90.  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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This week's fossil is a specimen of Asterophyllites equisetiformis.  A. equisetiformis is an extinct form of horsetail, related to Annularia.  This particular fossil was found by Jim Konecny in the 1960's.  Jim was president of ESCONI in 1966.  He was a prolific fossil collector and has two Mazon Creek species named for him and his wife Sylvia.  Flashback Friday #30 was an article on Mazon Creek by both of them.

• Fossundecima konecniorum (a worm)
• Priapulites konecniorum (a worm)

Throwback Thursday #92: Looking Back at ESCONI for January 2022 #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday

This is Throwback Thursday #92.  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 - January 1997

• The speaker at the General Meeting was ESCONI member Warren Valsa, who did a presentation on the micro fauna fossils of Central Montana.
• The Paleontology Study Group was discussing Ordovician fossils.
• The Mineralogy Study Group was discussing copper again... the White Pines Copper Mine in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
• Archaeology was learning about the Terra Cotta warriors of China.
• Karl Everett became President of ESCONI.
• The American Federation of Mineralogical Societies (AMFS) was celebrating its 50th anniversary.

50 Years Ago - January 1972

• The speaker for the General Meeting was Dr. Edward J. Olsen, Curator of Mineralogy, Geology Division for the Field Museum. He presented on meteorites.
• The Paleontology Study Group discussed the latest development in Pit 11.  Jim Konecny led the discussion.
• The Mineralogy Study Group looked at "Copper Minerals".
• On January 8th, the Lizzadro Museum had a lecture/slide show called "Dinosaurs".
• On January 15th, there was a field trip to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
• Jean Reynolds became president of ESCONI.

70 Years Ago - January 1952

• The General Meeting had Professor L. L. Sloss of Northwestern University.  The topic was "Practical Uses For Paleontologists".
• December 1st, 1951 was the first meeting of the Archaeology Study Group
• An announcement in the newsletter said that ESCONI members could get a subscription discount on "Lapidary Journal", "Mineral Notes and News", and "Desert Magazine".
• The newsletter had a short article about the new method of measuring the age of archaeological and geologic specimens... C₁₄ dating.

10 coolest non-dinosaur fossils unearthed in 2021 #fossil #paleontology #2021 #MazonCreek

This fossilized horseshoe crab (Euproops danae), shown in the left image, held a perfectly preserved mold of its brain, shown close-up on the right. (Image credit: Russell Bicknell)

There are many posts recapping 2021 out there... LiveScience has one about 10 coolest non-dinosaur fossil discoveries of 2021.  Mazon Creek made the list with the discovery of a fossilized arachnid brain.

• Parasite-infested ant in amber
• Squid murdered mid-meal
• Ancient arachnid brain
• Billion-year-old fossil 'balls'
• Fossilized fish lung
• Giant hornless rhino
• Tiny 'immortal' crab
• Family of spider mummies
• Cephalopod grandaddy
• 'Winged' eagle shark

 

 

 

Trilobite Tuesday #36: 7th International Conference on Trilobites & Their Relatives - Cincinnati July 14th to 18th, 2022 #trilobite #cincinnati #paleontology

The Cincinnati Museum Center is sponsoring the 7th International Conference on Trilobites & Their Relatives from July 14th to 18th, 2022.  There are field trips both before and after the conference. 

• Registration
• Session Topics and Schedule
• Pre-Conference Field Trip
  Madison, Wisconsin
• Intra-Conference Field Trip
  Potential sites to visit: Sycamore Creek, Indian Hill; Mt. Orab, OH; Maysville, KY
• Post-Conference Field Trip
  Ordovician-Devonian of the Mohawk and Niagara-Lake Erie regions of western New York State

A Warm Welcome!

Welcome to the 7th International Conference on Trilobites & Their Relatives to be held at Cincinnati Museum Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A, July 14 to 18, 2022. We look forward to hosting participants from all corners of the globe in our iconic 1933 Art Deco Train Station, Union Terminal. To learn more about the history and architecture of this national historic landmark, pleased click here.

This international conference occurs every 4 years and attracts professional scientists, graduate and undergraduate students, serious amateur paleontologists, and interested members of the public. The goals of the conference are to present and discuss recent progress in studies on all aspects of trilobites and their relatives (e.g., morphology, evolution, phylogeny, ecology, development, and geography).

On-site registration and conference check in will be the evening of July 14 at the icebreaker event at Rhinegeist Brewery and the morning of July 15 in the rotunda of Union Terminal (Cincinnati Museum Center). More details to follow.

The Icebreaker Event will be the evening of July 14 at Rhinegeist Brewery. Light hors d’oeuvres will be provided. For more information on this venue, please see rhinegeist.com.

Morning and afternoon coffee, tea, snacks, and lunch will be provided during the three days of sessions at Union Terminal. Dinner is not provided except for the banquet on July 18.

The intra-conference field trip to the type-Cincinnatian Series will be Sunday July 17. Water, snacks, lunch, and transportation will be provided for the day.

Please be advised that CMC is a smoke- and tobacco-free building.

 

Mazon Monday #93: Dr. Victoria McCoy: Mazon Creek Fossils #fossil #paleontology #MazonMonday #MazonCreek #illinois

This is Mazon Monday post #93.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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ESCONI member Ralph Jewell sent me this link for a video of a presentation by Dr. Victoria McCoy of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Department of Geosciences.  Her presentation is entitled "Mazon Creek Fossils". 

Dr. Victoria McCoy, UWM Department of Geosciences, discusses the Mazon Creek Lagerstätte: A diverse late Paleozoic ecosystem entombed within siderite concretions during the Fall Colloquium, Dec. 6, 2021.

Victoria has been active in Mazon Creek research.  You might remember her as lead author on a study of the Tully Monster back 2016 that found it to be a vertebrate.  She was interviewed about that research on Palaeocast #62.

Here is a list of some of her papers relevant to Mazon Creek.  You can find more about her on her page at the UWM.

• McCoy VE, Wiemann J, Lamsdell JC, Whalen CD, Lidgard S, Mayer P, Petermann H, and Briggs DEG. In review. Chemical signatures of soft tissues distinguish between vertebrates and  invertebrates from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek Lagerstätte of Illinois. Geobiology.
• Cotroneo S, Schiffbauer JD, McCoy VE, Wortmann UG, Darroch SAF, Peng Y, and Laflamme M. 2016. A new model of the formation of Pennsylvanian iron carbonate concretions hosting exceptional soft‐bodied fossils in Mazon Creek, Illinois. Geobiology. doi:10.1111/gbi.12197
• McCoy VE, Saupe EE, Lamsdell JC, Tarhan LG, McMahon S, Lidgard S, Mayer P, Whalen SD, Soriano C, Finney L, Vogt S, Clark EG, Anderson RP, Petermann H, Locatelli ER, and Briggs DEG. 2016. The Tully Monster is a vertebrate. Nature 532: 496-499.
• McCoy VE, Young RT, and Briggs DEG. 2015a. Sediment permeability and the preservation of soft-tissues in concretions: an experimental study. Palaios 30: 608-612.
• McCoy VE, Young RT, and Briggs DEG. 2015b. Factors controlling exceptional preservation within concretions. Palaios 30: 272-280.
• McCoy VE. 2014. Concretions as agents of soft tissue preservation: a review. Reading and writing of the fossil record: preservational pathways to exceptional fossilization. The Paleontological Society Papers 20:147-162.
• McCoy VE. 2013. Patterns In Palaeontology: Exceptional preservation of fossils in concretions. Palaeontology Online 3: Article 7, 1-14.
• Dolak D, and McCoy VE. 2012. The concretion conundrum: Current research at Mazon Creek. Mid-American Paleontological Society Digest 35:1-23

Thanks for the contribution, Ralph!

 

Human-size ammonites swam the Atlantic Ocean 80 million years ago #fossil #cephalopod #ammonite #paleotology

(Image credit: Getty / estt)

LiveScience has a story about some truly large ammonites.  About 80 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, six foot ammonites lived in the Atlantic Ocean.  A new study published in the journal PLOS One looked at the evolutionary history of these massive cephalopods.  They looked at 154 specimens (!), including 100 newly found specimens from England and Mexico.

About 80 million years ago, human-size sea creatures with tentacle-like arms and coiled shells up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) wide glided through the Atlantic Ocean, a new study reveals. 

These creatures were the world's largest ammonites, a group of shelled cephalopods that went extinct roughly 66 million years ago. The largest ammonite fossil ever discovered belongs to the species Parapuzosia seppenradensis; the fossil, which was found in Germany in 1895, has a gargantuan shell measuring 5.7 feet (1.7 m) across. 

Although this famous fossil was uncovered more than a century ago, few ammonite fossils of similar size had been found until recently, which left big questions about how and when P. seppenradensis evolved to be such an impressive size. 

 

 

 

The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2021 #dinosaur #fossil #paleontology #2021

The tyrannosaur Nanuqsaurus, which lived in the Arctic, with its young. New evidence suggests dinosaurs nested in the cold, dark region. James Havens

Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the top dinosaurs discoveries in 2021.  42 new species were described.  That's a good year!

There’s never been a better time to be a dinosaur fan. New species are being described at a fast-and-furious pace, with 42 species named just this year, and paleontologists have also been investigating and arguing about everything from patterns of dinosaur evolution to the ethics of fossil collecting. This year’s finds help set up the studies and debates that we’ll be sure to see in the years ahead, and these are some of the most important dinosaur-focused stories that have been unearthed in 2021.

• Armored Dinosaur Swung an Unusual Tail
• Fuzzy Dinosaur From Brazil Stirs Ethics Debate
• Tyrants Once Dominated Their Environments
• Predators Once Towered Over Smaller Tyrannosaurs
• Scientists Discover Baby Dinosaur Fossils in the Arctic
• Dinosaurs Hung Out With Their Peers
• The “Smallest Dinosaur” Is Really a Lizard
• Paleontologists May Have Found the Biggest Dinosaur
• Stubby-Armed Dinosaurs Ate Insects
• Scientists Get to the Bottom of Dinosaur Butts