This is Mazon Monday post #164. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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Jack Wittry is a long time ESCONI member, who has written three books on the fossils of Mazon Creek "The Mazon Creek Fossil Flora" in 2006, "The Mazon Creek Fossil Fauna" in 2012, and "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek" in 2020. These books are excellent resources for anyone with any interest in the fossils from this amazing locality, which has been called one of the most important fossil sites in the world, due to the richness in variety and the preservation detail of the specimens found there. There have been many reviews of these books. One recently caught the eye of ESCONI Circulation and Membership chairperson Rose Jansen.
Richard Fisher - March 8th, 1930 - June 10th, 2022
Richard "Dick" Fisher posted a review to Amazon for "The Mazon Creek Fossil Fauna" back in August, 2013, a little over a year after it was published. Mr. Fisher was a long time Mazon Creek collector, who made significant contributions to the science of paleontology. Unfortunately, Dick Fisher passed away on June 10th, 2022 at age 92. His obituary alludes to some of his contributions to the paleontology of Mazon Creek.
Dick had an insatiable interest into life sciences – paleontology, entomology as well as a passion for amateur radio. His diverse interests, extensive knowledge, and desire to share made for someone with boundless capacity for interesting conversation. His pursuit of his non-work endeavors and hobbies was always deep, so much so that he gained the respect of researchers at the Field Museum in Chicago for his efforts to collect and categorize 309 million year old fossil specimens found in the Mazon Creek area found in central Illinois. His love of fossils also brought him introduction to his future mother in law, Ruth Scott as she worked at the Museum of Natural History in Cincinnati. The two fossil hunted many months before Dick realized Ruth had a daughter Mary (deceased) whom he would later marry.
Here is the text of his informative and heartfelt review on Amazon.
When I found that his book had been published I could not wait to have a copy of my own.
I was not in any way disappointed with it (except for two very very minor ones listed below). To put it mildly I could not be happier with this material.
I have spent many hundreds of hours collecting at Mazon Creek and thought I had a fairly reasonable sample of what could be found there. After reading this book I find I might have 1% of the material shown represented in my collection.
The Forward and the following section "Coal, Shale, and Ironstone: The Paleontology of Mazon Creek and Its Great Faunal Discoveries" is a must read. It gives a concise history of the Mazon Creek area and what is thought to happened there to create such magnificent fossilization of soft bodied animals.
I was quite surprised to learn that is is now thought that shale containing these fossils was deposited by a momentous flood.
In my opinion this is the best book so far on the Mazon Creek area because of the color photographs and the easy reading. Color adds an immense dimension to viewing the specimens. I don't see how anyone could ask for anything more in the way of a book that contains so many specimens pictured in color accompanied by very readable text.
Each plate is accompanied by very well text written so that an amateur can completely understand it.
I was somewhat disappointed in that a picture of a Platysomus circularis fish shown to me by Dr. Richardson was not included. The fish was a little larger than a 50 cent piece and looked to have been made by a master gold craftsman. It had little scientific value I assume but any woman would have been proud to wear it around her neck. It was of course fossilized in iron pyrites - each scale and all other features having been perfectly taken over by iron pyrites.
My other disappointment was that a fossil I donated to the Field Museum was not included. It was of a Palaeocampa anthrax. The reason this fossil was unique was that the mouth parts were preserved in great detail. Dr. Richardson said "Darn you Fisher we had at first thought this was a land caterpillar then it was decided that it was a sea creature. We have about 50 of these in our collection and yours is the only one with the mouth parts preserved and now that I have seen your specimen I am not so sure it wasn't a land caterpillar after all." He indicated that he would probably write a paper on this specimen but he passed away rather suddenly shortly after I donated the specimen. This by the way is my one and only claim to fame!!! I hope you do not consider this bragging as it was just pure luck that I was the one that found this nodule.
I would also highly recommend Mr.T.V.Testas book "Mazon Creek Fossil Animals" A few of his fossils are of better preservation than shown in this book.
Possibly of further interest there was a strip mine near Terre Haute, Indiana that contains some of the remarkable preservation of soft bodied creatures such as spiders, eurypterids, shrimp and other animals. I know of no books published on this location. It is interesting that all of the material at Terre Haute is about 1/2 the size of that found at Mazon Creek. I am sure when collecting there I threw out a lot of material that I did not recognize but would have recognized after reading this book.
I want to thank Mr. Wittry and the ESCONI organization for producing such a marvelous book. In case you are not aware they have been producing books on Mazon Creek since before 1958. This one tops the list.
In closing it is a great shame that the collections of the hundreds of people who have collected at Mazon Creek cannot be brought together in one place. I am sure there are many more as yet undescribed animals residing in those collections.
That's a great review of a great book! There are no estimates of a release date, but rumor has it that Jack is deep into writing a the follow up to this book on Mazon Creek animals. So, it's really too bad that Mr Fisher isn't around to write another review... I'm sure he would enjoy it as much if not more than the original!
Thanks for the contribution, Rose!
