This is Mazon Monday post #156. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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Charles Shabica stopped by the ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show on Saturday.
Charles Shabica and John Catalani
Ralph Jewell, Rich Holm, Jeremy Zimmerman, Charles Shabica, and John Catalani
Tony Bellos getting his Richardson's Guide autographed by Charles Shabica.
Just in case you don't know who he is... Shabica edited the "Richardson's Gulde to the Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek", which was published in 1997. He is author/co-author of many Mazon Creek scientific papers, including "Biota of a Pennsylvanian Muddy Coast: Habitats Within the Mazonian Delta Complex, Northeast Illinois" with Gordon Baird, which helped create a picture of the geography of Northern Illinois during the Pennsylvanian Period, about 307 million year ago.
FIGURE 1-Study area. 1, Mazon Creek region of northern Illinois showing the location of strip and underground mines; 2, inferred paleogeography during deposition of the Francis Creek Shale Member (strip mines shown in black); 3, location of area 2 relative to inferred position of Pennsylvanian sea (stippled area) covering most of Illinois.
He dropped off some amazing historical documents pertaining to the creation of the Richardson's Guide, as it is affectionately called. The book was dedicated to Eugene Richardson, Jr., who started compiling material for a book back in the 1960's. There's also quite a bit of information about the Mazon Creek Project, which he led for many years after Richardson's untimely death.
Dedication
Gene Richardson was a man of many hats- paleontologist, poet, and printer. Those who knew him professionally may never have guessed how he spent his spare time, while bookmen who so admired the beautiful presswork of The Vanishing Press and the writings of E. Scumas Rory would have been surprised to see him in the field with hammer, knapsack, and muddy boots. But all would have attested to the great generosity and far-reaching vision of their friend and colleague.
We will be scanning and posting portions of the material in the coming weeks. At some point, these valuable historical and scientific documents will be deposited in a more permanent home, probably the Field Museum of Natural History.
The Tullymonster display shown below was one of the items he donated to ESCONI.
Eugene Richardson
By Markie Benet
"Ten years ago, hardly anybody had a Tully Monster. But such is the rapid march of progress, that now there are hundreds of happy owners of this curious fossil."
Thus began an article in the July, 1966, issue of the Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, describing a new and strange local phenomenon. Fossils of an animal that probably swam in the sea covering southern Illinois about 280,000,000 years ago have been found in the mounds of earth dug up from the Peabody Coal Co.'s strip mines. A mine on the Will-Kankakee County line is the source of the fossils, which include the Tully Monster and other formerly unknown specimens.
At the Field Museum, Eugene S. Richardson Jr., author of the article and curator of fossil invertebrates, offered eye-opening information about some paleontological phenomena and the world of the amateur collector.
In a large office littered with papers, fossils and pipe ashes, the tanned, twinkle-eyed scientist dis- played some Tully Monsters and explained that al- though hundreds of them have been collected, mostly...
Francis Tully
The Tully Monster
