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This is the preview post #7 for the 2022 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The show is on March 19th and 20th, 2022 at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL. All details can be found here.
Yep... you guessed it. We have a few partial Tully Monsters for the live auction! Come on out!
This is Throwback Thursday #102. 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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ESCONI has been holding a show in the spring since about 1960. In the mid 1970's, it became the Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show. Before that, there was the Indoor Field Trip hosted by the Paleontology Study Group.
Today, we are looking back 30 years to the 1992 show. The show was held on March 7th and 8th, 1992 in the old College of DuPage Building K. Meetings were also in Building K for a long time. Floyd Rogers was President of ESCONI.
Photos from the show... there are a few familiar faces and a few others you might recognize from previous posts.
A young Don Cronauer and Lorel Abrell Demonstrating Lapidary
Barbara Petry
Don Auler on the right
Martha Prepp Greeting Visitors
Getting Ready for the Live Auction
Floyd Rogers Flintknapping
More Floyd Rogers Flintknapping
John Ade and Andy Hay
This is the preview post #6 for the 2022 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The show is on March 19th and 20th, 2022 at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL. All details can be found here.
Today's preview for the live auction is a box of assorted Mazon Creek plant fossils. There's a little bit of everything, 3 ferns (Crenulopteris), 2 different seed ferns (Macroneuropteris and Alethopteris), and a lycopod (Asterophyllites). These were collected back in the 1950's and 1960's by an ESCONI member.
This is the preview post #5 for the 2022 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The show is on March 19th and 20th, 2022 at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL. All details can be found here.
Another stunning preview for our upcoming show this weekend, March 19th and 20th 2022. This is a Mioplosus labracoides from the Green River Formation in Wyoming. These extinct Perch-like fish have incredible detail. This one is from the famous 18" layer, which yields some of the highest quality specimens. This particularly outstanding specimen was donated by Dave Carlson and prepared by Keith Robitschek.
This is Mazon Monday post #103. 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
Today, we look at another part of the plant Calamites. Recall that paleobotany uses form genera as a strategy to identify plant parts. If you aren't familiar with the concept, there is a good explanation 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 more information of the parts of Calamites, have a look at some of our previous Mazon Monday posts. In Mazon Monday #94, we highlighted Calamites cisti, which is the stem of the Calamites plant. For Mazon Monday #99, we looked at Calamostachys, which is the reproductive cone structure. And, way back in Mazon Monday #60, we had Annularia inflata in the spotlight. Annularia is a foliage part of the plant. An additional foliage part is Asterophyllites and Asterophyllites equisetiformis is the subject of this post.
Asterophyllites equisetiformis was described in 1829 by Alexandre Brongniart, a French chemist, mineralogist, geologist, paleontologist, and zoologist. He described many of the species of Mazon Creek from specimens found in France in the early 1800's. He is probably most known for his work that classified reptiles into four different groups, one of which eventually became Amphibia. Later he collaborated with Georges Cuvier to study the geology of the region around Paris, France.
The "Keys to Identify Pennyslvanian Fossil Plants of the Mazon Creek Area", mentions A. equisetiformis. along with the excellent drawings of Don Auler, Past President of ESCONI.
ASTEROPHYLLITES
Like Annularia, this genus is a series of whorls of linear leaves encircling the nodes of Calamites stems. However, the leaves are narrower, more sharply pointed, and the whorls are usually seen side view, not flattened as in Annularia.
Asterophyllites equisetiformis
Leaf length is equal to or slightly greater than the distance between the nodes.
In "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek" by Wittry, A. equisetiformis appears on page 65.
Asterophyllites equisetiformis Brongniart, 1829
1829. Asterophyllites equisetiformis Brongniart: p. 159, 176
1879-80. Asterophyllites equisetiformis Brongniart; Lesquereux: p. 35, pl. 2, fig. 3
1899. Asterophyllites equisetiformis (Schlotheim) Brongniart; White: p. 146, pl. 59, fig. 1c
1925. Calamocladus equisetiformis; Noé: pl. 4, fig. 1
1958. Asterophyllites equisetiformis Schlotheim; Langford: p. 43, figs. 49, 50 3
1969. Asterophyllites equisetiformis Schlotheim; Crookall: p. 695, pl. 142, fig.
1969. Asterophyllites equisetiformis Brongniart; Darrah: p. 173, pl. 40, figs. 3, 4
1979. Asterophyllites equisetiformis Brongniart; Janssen: p. 88, fig. 71DESCRIPTION: The number of leaves per whorl ranges from 10 to 20, but they can rarely be counted. The leaves of a whorl are of equal length, and generally as long as or slightly longer than the internode length. They are linear, widest in the middle, pointed at the tip, and all arch upward toward the branch apex. The venation consists of a single, thick midvein.
REMARKS: Asterophyllites equisetiformis is common, and the most common of the Asterophyllites species. Darrah (1969) stated that there is a large range of features seen in fossils of this taxon. The variation in leaf length, number per whorl, and arching make it likely that more than one biological species have been placed in this taxon. This does not seem to be the case in the Mazon Creek flora where this taxon appears to have a consistent set of characteristics.
Field Museum via "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek".
From an ESCONI member
Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois
ESCONI
2022
Gem, Mineral and Fossil
Show
March 19th and 20th
Dealers, Demonstrators, Displays, Live and Silent Auctions,
Book Sales, Kid’s Korner, Geode Splitting
Free Parking! Free Admission!
DuPage County Fairgrounds
2015 Manchester Rd.
Wheaton, Illinois
Saturday 10 AM to 5 PM
Sunday 10 AM to 4 PM
www.esconi.org
Credit: University of Manchester
Phys.org has a story about a new Cambrian arthropod. Erratus sperare was discovered in the Chenjiang Fossil Site in Yunnan, China. That site dates to about 520 million years ago during the Cambrian Period. The researchers were looking for evidence of the evolution of biramous limbs from specialized flaps. In both cases, the limbs are used for locomotion and as gill structures. E. sperare has both. The research was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
University of Manchester research fellow David Legg, in collaboration with a team of international scientists from China, Switzerland, and Sweden, has today announced a new fossil that reveals the origin of gills in arthropods.
Arthropods, the group of animals that includes creepy crawlies like spiders and woodlice, are the largest phylum in the animal kingdom and are found everywhere from the deepest ocean trench to the top of Mount Everest.
Research published today shows the newest addition to the group is a 520-million-year-old (about 5 times as old as the dinosaurs) organism called Erratus sperare. Erratus sperare was discovered in the Chengjiang Fossil Site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Yunnan, China. The Chengjiang Fossil Site preserves an ancient underwater ecosystem which included the relatives of some well-known arthropod fossils like trilobites and anomalocarids.
Modern water dwelling arthropods have biramous limbs, legs that have two parts—one for breathing and one for walking—but how such specialized limbs evolved was a mystery. Some of the earliest fossil arthropods, like Anomalocaris, had swimming flaps that may have doubled as gills, but until now researchers didn't know how arthropods made the jump from these specialized flaps to the biramous limbs of modern arthropods.
Erratus sperare provides the missing link between arthropods that used such specialized flaps and arthropods with biramous limbs. It has both legs and flaps.
This is the "Fossil Friday" post #99. 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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Our first Mazon Monday was about the Tully Monster. First discovered in 1955 by an amateur fossil collector named Francis Tully, Tullimonstrum gregarium became the state fossil of Illinois in 1989.
Since then, it has captured the heart of both amateur and professional paleontologists. Hey, how many Pennsylvanian fossils can be found as a stuffed animal? Actually, quite a few!
In recent years, the mystery of where T. gregarium belongs on tree of life has been somewhat solved. It is a vertebrate like us.
This week's Fossil Friday is a very nice Tully Monster discovered the first weekend of March, 2022 by Valerie Anderson, who serves as ESCONI's recording secretary. You might recall that Pit 11 collecting opens each March 1st. Congratulations, Valerie! Awesome find! Hopefully, you have the claw under the enclosed end! Now, I need to follow both you and your husband around on field trips!
This is Throwback Thursday #101. 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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Another Bill Allaway poem is our Throwback Thursday post for this week. Bill was the first chairman of ESCONI. He contributed more than a few poems for the newsletter over the years. My favorite is "Winter's Field Trip", which we posted in Throwback Thursday #30. This one is called "The Easy Way Out" and appeared in the December 1951 edition of the newsletter.
The Easy Way Out
When your mind is full of problems
And you're trying to relax -
When you're haunted by such goblins
As the annual income tax -
You will soon forget your troubles
If you write a little poem;
They will disappear like bubbles
In a puff of creamy foam.
First you think of Pterodactyl
Then you start to wonder why
Those peculiar ancient creatures
Without feathers, tried to fly.Then you think of Dinosaurs
With a brain so very small
As he lumbered 'round the mountains,
Why he tried to think at all
There are many other critters
In the prehistoric days
That would give a man the jitters
In a thousand different ways.
So you see it's very easy
To relax your weary mind
Just sit down and write a poem
It can be most any kind,W. H. Allaway
Two pterosaur fossils from China dating to the Late Jurassic, with green arrows indicating the pellets; the yellow arrows indicate fish scales.Credit...Jiang et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2022
The New York Times Trilobite column has a story about some Chinese pterosaurs. A paper in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B details the discovery of gut contents in the remains of two pterosaur fossil found in China. The animals lived during the late Jurassic about 160 million years ago.
Fur, bones, feathers and scales can be murder on the digestion. So predators that gulp their prey down whole face a conundrum: What do you do with the indigestible bits? Owls and other birds of prey cough up anything unusable. If you’ve been to a science museum, you may have dissected one of the products of these digestive outbursts, known as owl pellets.
It appears that flying predators were coughing up big pellets in the dinosaur era, too. In a paper published on Monday in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Chinese paleontologists announced the discovery of a pair of pterosaurs, each preserved in fine detail — along with the pellets leftover from parts of their meals. The find adds another animal to the history of life that spit out food it couldn’t digest.
According to Shunxing Jiang, a paleontologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an author on the study, some researchers had suspected that pterosaurs might be capable of producing pellets, considering their close evolutionary relationship with dinosaurs, which also left pellets in the fossil record. But none had ever been found.
This is the preview post #4 for the 2022 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The show is on March 19th and 20th, 2022 at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL. All details can be found here.
A brachiopod plate from the Silica shale in Ohio is our next preview. The plate has some well preserved Mucrospirifer mucronatus brachiopods. For more information, Fossil Friday #7 looked at the Silica shale, which is exposed in quarries around Toledo, OH. The LaFarge quarry in Paulding, OH is a famous locality where anyone can stop and collect various Devonian fossils.
This is Mazon Monday post #102. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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Scorpions are very rare in the Mazon Creek fossil biota. Eoscorpius carbonarius was described by FB. Meek and A.H. Worthen in 1868. The paper was published in the America Journal of Sciences - "Meek, Fielding B. & A. H. Worthen. 1868. Preliminary notice on a scorpion, a Eurypterus? and other fossils from the Coal Measures of Illinois and Iowa. American Journal of Sciences and Arts 2(45): 22-25.", where they called it Eurypterus carbonarius.
ART. II.-Preliminary notice of a Scorpion, a Eurypterus? and other fossils, from the Coal-measures of Illinois; by F. B. MEEK and A. H. WORTHEN.
AMONGST some fossils discovered last summer by Mr. Joseph Even, in the iron nodules of the Coal-measures at Mazon creek, Grundy county, Illinois, and loaned by him for the use of the Illinois Geological Survey, there are a few types of such unusual interest, that we have thought it desirable to present a preliminary notice of them, in advance of more extended descriptions and illustrations, to appear in one of the reports of the Survey.
The first of these is a fine Eurypterus, or a species of a closely allied genus, between the size of E. remipes and E. robustus. The specimen consists of an impression in the matrix, of the under surface of all the thoracic, and a part of one or two of the abdominal segments, in a more or less nearly perfect condition; with the operculum or thoracic flap, the post-oral plate, and the maxillary or basal joints of the swimming feet, all in place. There are also prints of some of the succeeding joints of one of the latter organs, and its oar-like expansion, and obscure impressions of three of the smaller legs on one side, and some of the basal joints of the same on the other side. all converging to the position of the mouth immediately in front of the post-oral plate. As the carapace and the dorsal portions of the thorax are enveloped in the other half of the concretion, which was not found, and the posterior portions of the abdomen and the telson extended beyond the limits of the concretion, we know nothing of the nature of any of these parts.
*These legs are slender, apparently without lateral spines, and terminate in a single long, acutely pointed dactylus, as in Pterygotus.
Fielding Bradford Meek and Amos Henry Worthen were both prolific namers of taxa back in the middle 1880's. They collaborated on many papers through the years, including the description of Acanthotelson stimpsoni in 1865. Meek worked at the USGS. A.H Worthen was the second state geologist of Illinois and the first curator of the Illinois State Museum. He had an extensive fossil collection, which now resides at the Prairie Research Institute PRI at the University of Illinois.
F.B Meek
A.H. Worthen
There have been other species of Mazon Creek scorpions identified since E. carbonarius. Some of those species were described by Alexander Petrunkevitch in 1913. He was a Yale paleontologist during the early 20th century.
Alexander Ivanovitch Petrunkevitch (Russian: Александр Иванович Петрункевич, December 22, 1875 in Plysky near Kiev, now Ukraine – March 9, 1964 in New Haven) was an eminent Russian arachnologist of his time. From 1910 to 1939 he described over 130 spider species. One of his most famous essays was "The Spider and the Wasp." In it he uses effective word choices and some comic touch.
The holotype of E. carbonarius resides at the Field Museum, where the specimen and its labels were digitized and published online.
It's worth noting that this specimen came from the University of Chicago's famous Walker Museum and was part of the Gurley Collection. W.F.E. Gurley (1854 - 1943) was the Illinois State Geologist from 1893 to 1897. In 1900, he became associate curator at the Walker Museum, where he worked until his death in 1943. He exchanged fossils and opinions with many of the amateur and professional paleontologists of the day, including Edward Drinker Cope, Leo Lesquereux, Fielding Bradford Meek, Edward S. Morse, Charles Schuchert, Samuel H. Scudder, and L.E. Daniels. A memorial to him was published in the Proceedings Volume of the Geological Society of America Annual Report for 1943. His extensive letters and papers can be found at the University of Chicago Library.
The University of Chicago's Walker Museum in 1893.
In "The Mazon Creek Fossil Fauna", Eoscorpius sp. appears on Page 45.
Scorpions are the earliest known arachnids and are considered to be one of the first terrestrial animals. Examples are found from as long ago as the Middle Silurian. These animals likely possessed gills and were aquatic, living in marginal marine brackish water environments. The earliest scorpions had cover plates that probably only kept their gills moist enough for brief trips onto land. Mazon Creek scorpions are the first of their kind to show evidence of book lungs, and thus were completely adapted to terrestrial life.
Scorpions were alive during one of the most important times in the history of life: when animals began to move onto shore. However, they may not have been the first to do so; there were almost certainly invertebrates such as millipedes before them. In the scorpions' 400-million-year history, their lifestyle has evolved from living in shallow seas and hunting alongside eurypterids to the present day, where they are mostly terrestrial nocturnal predators living in hot and dry areas of the world. Another marked evolutionary change in this group is the transition from having compound eyes and excellent vision for hunting to having only simple eyes and poor vision, such that the animal has to rely on its sense of touch to find prey. This is a remarkable journey by one of the most adaptable animals in the history of life on Earth.
Eoscorpius sp. specimen owned by ESCONI member Phil Anderson
Life reconstruction of Iberospinus natarioi (ML1190) showing 3D digitalization of some of the recovered bones, along with reconstructed musculature. Upper, right lateral view; Bottom, anterolateral left view. Paleoart by Victor Feijó de Carvalho. Credit: Mateus, Estraviz-López et al., 2022, PLOS ONE
Phys.org has a story about a new species of spinosaur. A paper published in PLOS ONE looks at some dinosaur fossils discovered 23 years ago in Portugal. The authors from both the NOVA School of Science and Technology and Museu da Lourinhã describe the bones as Iberospinus natarioi, a new species of spinosaur.
Spinosaurids are believed to be one of the largest living carnivores to have ever walked the earth. They were long with large back legs and small front legs, as well as long tails and large heads that somewhat resembled those of a crocodile. They lived during the Mesozoic in Africa and parts of Britain and Europe, most notably on the Iberian Peninsula. Prior research has suggested that they likely lived most of their lives in the water but were quite capable of chasing down prey on land as well. Estimates of their characteristics are generalized as only a small number of fossils that have been found.
In this new effort, Mateus and Estraviz-Lo´pez suspected that the fossil remains discovered in 1999 close to Cabo Espichel, Portugal had been mistakenly identified. For many years, it was believed that the remains were from a single Spinosaurus known as Baryonyx walkeri—so they were given the label ML1190. The fossils included dorsal vertebra, rib fragments, a pubis shaft, dentary fragments, a partial right scapula, a phalanx bone, a public peduncle, and dorsal neural arches.
In taking a closer look at the fossils, the research pair found that they came from a creature that was likely 9 meters long and lived approximately 125 million years ago. In studying where the nerves would have been in the creature's mandible and a tip on the dentary that was straight instead of curved as it was with other Spinosaurids, the researchers found evidence of a unique species. They also found it had a unique bony ridge on its pubis and lacked the type of muscle projections seen with Baryonyx. They gave it the name Iberospinus natarioi, after the Iberian Peninsula, and Carlos Natário, the amateur archeologist who found the fossils.
This is the "Fossil Friday" post #98. 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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Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri, a seed fern, is up for this week's Fossil Friday. However, this specimen is from Knob Noster in Missouri not Mazon Creek. The Knob Noster locality is thought to be contemporaneous with Mazon Creek, which dates to about 307 million years ago. Back in the Pennsylvanian, a large bay is thought to have separated the two deposits. The red dot below represents Wilmington, IL 300 million years ago. Looking at the outline of Missouri, Knob Noster is in the middle west portion of Missouri, just southeast of Kansas City.
Paleo Map for 300 million years ago from https://dinosaurpictures.org/
Fossils from Knob Noster are found in concretions just like Mazon Creek. But, the Matrix is quite a bit different, being much lighter in color and much less dense. We had a spider from Knob Noster back in Fossil Friday #84 and a Neuropteris vermicularis in Fossil Friday #87.
This is Throwback Thursday #100. 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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Drawing for the Indoor Field Trip in March 1972
25 Years Ago - March 1997
50 Years Ago - March 1972
70 Years Ago - March 1952
This is the preview post #3 for the 2022 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The show is on March 19th and 20th, 2022 at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL. All details can be found here.
Here's another mineral specimen for the live auction at the ESCONI show. This is fluorite from the famous Royal Flush Mine in Bingham, New Mexico.
The Mex-Tex mine, in New Mexico's famous Hansonburg district, has been operated solely for mineral specimens since 1987. Fine specimens of spangolite, brochantite, creedite, cyanotrichite, fluorite, linarite, tsumebite and wulfenite have been recovered.
INTRODUCTION
The history, geology and mineralogy of the Hansonburg mining district, including the Mex-Tex mine, was comprehensively covered by Taggart, Rosenzweig and Foord in an article published in Volume 20 (1989) (The New Mexico Issue) of the Mineralogical Record. A great deal of activity and new information specifically related to the Mex-Tex mine has come to light in the years following that publication. The intent of this article is to present a chronology of significant events that have occurred at the mine related to the discovery of new or important minerals and also other incidents which have impacted on mineral collecting at the Mex-Tex mine.
Activity at the Blanchard mine, which is approximately 1 mile south of the Mex-Tex mine, has in many ways paralleled developments at the Mex-Tex. The mineralogy of the two mines to a large extent is also very similar, but notable differences do exist and are worthy of separate discussion.
HISTORY
Mining activity in the Hansonburg district can be traced back to 1872, but specific references to the location now known as the Mex-Tex mine were not made until 1947, when a claim was located by A. R. Hickey, W. Hickey and F. Kay of Artesia, New Mexico. They held 30 or more claims in the area (Clippinger, 1949). A second group of claims known as the Royal Flush was also located at the same time as the Mex-Tex group. The Royal Flush group is about a mile north and east of the Mex-Tex and has for some purposes been considered as part of the "Mex-Tex group." The Royal Flush will not, however, be considered as part of the Mex-Tex mine for the purposes of this article.The group of 30 claims known as the Mex-Tex, owned by A. R. Hickey and associates, operated under the name of the Mex-Tex Mining Company. Work done by this concern consisted of road building and the excavation of a few open cuts (Williams et al., 1964). In early 1950, two men named Erwin and Bishop from Houston, Texas, who had control of the Royal Flush claims, purchased the Mex-Tex group but retained the name Mex-Tex Mining Company. They completed construction of a 200-ton-per-day barite mill near San Antonio, New Mexico (about 30 miles west of the mine). From late 1950 through 1958, the company produced 34,056 tons of barite. The Atomic Mineral Corporation purchased the Mex-Tex property in July of 1959, and it was then operated by a lessee, Galber, Inc., of Carlsbad (Lee Downey, president and general manager). In 1959 and 1960, the company produced 812 tons of barite (Williams et al., 1964). In the early 1960's, Galber Inc. mined and explored the Mex-Tex and other adjoining properties and shipped several carloads of lead concentrate by truck and rail to the ASARCO smelter in El Paso, Texas, 220 miles to the south (Kottlowski, 1979). Mining activity at the Mex-Tex mine virtually ceased thereafter. Total recorded production of barite in New Mexico up to and including 1962 was 36,118 tons, mined in nine of the state's 32 counties. However, 96.5% of the total had been obtained from a single deposit, the Mex-Tex mine (Williams et al., 1964).
From 1964 to 1987, the ownership of the Mex-Tex mine is not clear. The Sunshine Mining Company which held claims at the nearby Blanchard mine most likely also held claims at the Mex-Tex group of mines in the mid to late 1960's. A series of corporations including Basic Earth Science Systems, Inc., Hansonburg Mines Inc., and Western General Resources, Inc., exercised control in the 1970's to 1983. In 1983, however, Western General Resources, Inc., did not complete the required annual assessment work and the property reverted to public domain. From 1983 to 1987 the entire Hansonburg district remained open to claim.
In May of 1987, the Mex-Tex mine was relocated as two claims (Dean Alexander and Ginger-Brandy) by one of the authors (TM) and Robert Dickie of Albuquerque, whose intention was to operate the mine for the production of mineral specimens. Since that time, the claims have been operated exclusively for the production of mineral specimens for collectors.
Illustration courtesy of Bob Nicholls (2009)
The Field Museum recently opened a new exhibit... "Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep". It runs until September 5th, 2022. More information can be found at the Field Museum website.
During the Jurassic period, dinosaurs roamed a landscape covered in lush rainforests—thanks to Hollywood, most of us have a pretty good idea of what that world looked like, but the Field Museum’s newest exhibition gives visitors a chance to dive into the other side of that world: its seas. Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep, which will open on February 25, takes visitors on an underwater journey to encounter some of the fascinating, fierce, and strange creatures that dominated Earth’s Jurassic seas while dinosaurs ruled the land.
The show features over 100 fossils and models ranging from giant marine reptiles that looked like real-life versions of the Loch Ness Monster to small, strange starfish cousins called sea lilies. Visitors will come face-to-face with marine predators and other friendly marine life of the Jurassic seas through real fossils and CGI projections.
“We’re excited to showcase these amazing encounters and let visitors experience the incredible diversity of the Jurassic oceans,” says Emily Parr, the exhibition’s project manager. The public will be able to touch real fossils of shelled creatures from the Jurassic, feel the textures of replicated sea creature skins, and explore the features of marine reptiles on interactive touchscreens.
The exhibition, which was produced and curated by London’s Natural History Museum, will showcase some of the top marine predators of the time. These include a true-to-life replica of a sleek, speedy reptile called an ichthyosaur and the skeleton of a long-necked plesiosaur.
Visitors will be able to get up close with a fossilized tail of one of the biggest fish ever discovered: Leedsichthys, a thirty-foot-long giant that cruised near the surface of the sea catching thousands of microscopic plankton. Museumgoers will also get to see real specimens of today’s marine reptiles: crocodiles, sea snakes, sea turtles, water monitors, and marine iguanas.
“I hope visitors will get to know some of the animals that dominated our oceans for 160 million years, and learn that dinosaurs weren’t the only impressive reptiles around in the Jurassic,” says Lottie Dodwell, an interpretation developer at London’s Natural History Museum, who worked on the exhibition.
“We are thrilled to be working with the Field Museum for the launch of our exhibition Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep, which features some of the most striking specimens from our collections,” says Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum, London. “In the present day when our planet is in crisis, it is more critical than ever before for us to act as advocates for the natural world. We hope visitors will enjoy diving deep into the history of our fascinating oceans and will be inspired to protect their future.”
“People have always tried to imagine what ferocious beasts might lurk beneath the waves,” says Parr. “Through the exhibition, we’ll be able to show them the real monsters of the deep.”
Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep will be presented with bilingual text in English and Spanish and will run until September 5. Field Museum major sponsor: Discover.
