Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

240 million-year-old fossil of salamander-like creature with 'gnarly teeth' unearthed in rocks for garden wall #fossil #paleontology #triassic #vertebrate #australia

The rock preserved the entire skeleton and even the outlines of the creature's skin.  (Image credit: UNSW Sydney/Richard Freeman)

LiveScience has an article about the discovery of a salamander-like animal in Australia.  The animal, Arenaerpeton supinatus — meaning "supine sand creeper" — lived about 240 million years ago during the Triassic Period in what is now Australia.  It was estimated to be 4 foot (1.2 meters) long and looked similar to the modern Chinese giant salamander Andrias davidianus.  The fossil was discovered about 30 years ago in a garden retaining wall by a retired chicken farmer.  The description of A. supinatus was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleonology.

The creature's ribs and the outlines of its skin suggest it was "considerably more heavyset than its living descendants," which may include modern amphibians (Lissamphibia), Hart added. "It also had some pretty gnarly teeth, including a pair of fang-like tusks on the roof of its mouth."

A. supinatus likely used these tusks to stab and shred its prey, which may have included ancient ray-finned fish, according to the researchers. 

Fossil Friday #173: Elonichthys hypsilepus from Mazon Creek #fossil #paleontology #fish #MazonCreek #FossilFriday #pit11

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #173.  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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Today, we have a gorgeous Mazon Creek fish.  This is Elonichthys hypsilepus, an Actinopterygii (ray finned) fish.  This is a distant relative of common modern day fish.

This beautiful specimen was sent in by ESCONI member Jake Fill.  He collected it from Pit 11.  It opened a few months ago, with just part of the fish exposed as seen in the first photo.  He promptly sent it off for preparation, which resulted in the second photo. 

Thanks for sharing this awesome specimen, Jake!

Before prep

After prep

 

Throwback Thursday #174: Bola Tie Raffle #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday #tie #bolatie #trilobite #tully #silver #sterlingsilver

This is Throwback Thursday #174.  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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September 1983 saw "The Chance of the Century"... which was a chance to win a sterling silver ESCONI Bola Tie.

Photos of a similar bola tie.

Note the Tully Monster and trilobite at the end of the string.

Maker's mark... HP for Harry Peterson.

The winner, Linn Buss, was announced in the November 1983 edition of the newsletter.  Linn led the Archaeology Study Group for a few years during the 1980's.

 

PBS Eons: Why The Giraffe Got Its Neck #fossil #paleontology #giraffe #evolution #mammal #africa #longneck #eons

PBS Eons has a new video on Youtube.  This one is about the evolution of long necks in giraffes.

How and why the giraffe's neck emerged in the first place has been a mystery that generations of biologists have argued over – one that has made us reconsider our understanding of how evolution actually works over and over again.

Trilobite Tuesday #44: Trilobite of the Month, August 2023 #fossil #paleontology #trilobite #facebook

Sam Ohu Gon III posted some awesome photos for Trilobite of the Month, August 2023 over on Facebook.  If you don't know of Sam's work, have a look at trilobites.info for everything you ever wanted to know about trilobites!

Coronocephalus gaoluoensis Wu 1979

Telychian Xiushan Fm., L. Silurian (Llandovery)

near Wanmin Town, Yongshun Cty., W. Hunan, China

Order Phacopida, Suborder Cheirurina, Family Encrinuridae

image courtesy York Yuxi Wang

Mazon Monday #176: "Please, try for more fossil insects!" #fossil #paleontology #MazonMonday #MazonCreek #insect #fossilinsect #history

This is Mazon Monday post #176.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Today's post is an update to Mazon Monday #172, which was entitled "Fossil Insect Symposium 1990".  Long time ESCONI member Marty Houdek read that post and sent us in some information about the event, because he attended.  As a matter of fact, he's in the last photo framed in the window, wearing the flannel shirt.  

I was at this symposium. I was the last person to have their fossils examined, and in picture number 7 that Tom took, I am the person standing in the middle of the back window.  Jarmila borrowed several of my insects, and I have enclosed photos, sketches, and correspondence for two of them. Robin and Jarmila wanted to go fossil hunting at the end of the symposium. We all drove out to the hills on 5000N across from Monster Lake, but it was late in the afternoon and nobody was dressed for a fossil hunt. We did not spend a lot of time there.

I went digging through Tom Testa's photos and found him in some of the others.   Here they are out at Insect Hill in Pit 11.

Here are the other photos Marty sent...with drawings of two awesome insect fossils.

The letter from Jarmilla is both charming and interesting.   Seems the insect pictured above is an unidentified species.  Wow!  I love her closing paragraph.... "Be in touch and, please, try for more fossil insects."  I mean like who's not trying?!?   Is there some sort of extra effort we can exert to find more of these?

Thanks for the contribution, Marty!  If anyone else has material we'd find interesting, please sent it along to email:[email protected].  The Tom Testa photos come courtesy of Michele Micetich at the Carbon Hill School Museum.

Jurassic era fish fossil found to have died from eating an overly large ammonite #fossil #paleontology #fish #ammonite #jurassic #germany

Credit: Geological Magazine (2023). DOI: 10.1017/S0016756823000456

Phys.org has an interesting post about a fish that died from indigestion.  The fish, an actinopterygian named Pachycormus macropterus, lived during the Jurassic Period between 174 and 182 million years ago.  Its fossil was found in Germany in the Posidonienschiefer Formation.  It swallowed an ammonite, which was much to large for it to digest.  Read all the details in the paper "Death by ammonite: fatal ingestion of an ammonoid shell by an Early Jurassic bony fish", which appeared in Geological Magazine.

The researchers found its belly full of a variety of prey. They found evidence of soft-bodied mollusks that looked somewhat like modern cuttlefish or squid and other smaller fish. They also found a large ammonite conch approximately 10 centimeters across, which did not show signs of digestion, a sign that the fish had died soon after swallowing the shelled creature.

The ammonite, the researchers note, was much too big for the fish to digest. They suggest that it was likely misidentified by the fish or it somehow became stuck in its mouth for an unknown reason. At that point, the fish would have been unable to eject it from its mouth, leaving no choice but to swallow it. Once it did that, the ammonite's shell blocked passage to the intestine, resulting in either congestion or internal bleeding. Either would have killed the fish within hours.

ESCONI Field Trip to Napoleon, IN for Silurian Fossils - Saturday, August 19th, 2023 #fossil #paleontology #silurian #trilobite #cystoid #indiana

Cystoid from a field trip to Napoleon - from a University of Kentucky website.

There will be a field trip for ESCONI members on Saturday, August 19, 2023 to the quarry in Napoleon, Indiana. The trip starts at 9 AM (Eastern) and ends at 1 PM. The rock at this location is Silurian in age, from the Osgood Member of the Salamonie Dolomite.

Rules are as follows:

1. You must register to attend this trip, and must be an ESCONI member as of August 4, 2023.
2. Everyone in your party must be at least 18 years of age.
3. The attendance limit is 25.
4. The address of the quarry is 8792 N County Rd 300W, Batesville, IN. It is located just east of Napoleon IN on SR48/229.
5. Everyone will sign a waiver.
6. You must have the following safety gear: sturdy (preferably steel-toed) boots, hard hat, safety glasses and safety vest.
7. When you register for the trip you’ll be sent 2 forms provided by the quarry. Print these out, sign them, and bring them to the quarry.

To register for this field trip, send Keith an email with the number of members attending. His email address is: [email protected]. No phone calls please. Do NOT call the quarry. He will confirm via return email within 24 hours. If you do not hear back from him within that time, send it again!

NOTE: This quarry is located southeast of Indianapolis, IN. Consider the distance when making your plans.

 

Fossil Friday #172: Mazoscolopendra richardsoni #fossil #paleontology #MazonCreek #FossilFriday #centipede #myriapod #pennsylvanian #pit11

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #172.  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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Centipedes are one of the rarest of Mazon Creek animals, with about 1 in 100,000 concretions expected to have a centipede.  Gordon C. Baird and John L. Anderson found just 3 in 287,000 concretions in their paper "Relative Abundance of Different Mazon Creek Organisms", which was published in the "Richardson's Guide to The Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek".  For comparison, they found 13 spiders, 66 fish, and 107 horseshoe crabs in their survey.

Well... earlier this week, Caroline Davis sent us photos of a Mazoscolopendra richardsoni (Richardson's Mazonian centipede, see Mazon Monday #169) that just opened for her.  She collected the concretion sometime back in 2021 from Pit 11, and opened it via freeze/thaw.  It's a gorgeous specimen with great color!

Thanks for sharing this extremely rare, beautiful fossil, Caroline!  

Throwback Thursday #173: Chiton Hill in Pit 11 #fossil #paleontology #history #pit11 #MazonCreek #TBT #throwbackthursday #chiton

This is Throwback Thursday #173.  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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Earlier this week, we posted Mazon Monday #172 Glaphurochiton.  In that post, it was mentioned that chitons tended to be found in larger assemblages.  In fact, a few ridges in Pit 11 were referred to as "Chiton Hills".

Chitons are very ancient animals ranging from the Late Cambrian to the present. G. concinnus specimens were found in at least two concentrations at Pit 11, which were nicknamed Chiton Hills by collectors. Chitons are also known from other Pennsylvanian-age sites in the United States. Modern chitons spend much of their time in the dark, attached to the undersides of submerged objects, feeding on algae. They are considered to be the most primitive of all living mollusks.

Well, here's a few photos of one of the hills. These photos were taken in May 1984 by Tom Testa.

This label was on the back of one of the photos

These photos are courtesy of the Carbon Hill School Museum's Tom Testa Collection.  Unfortunately (or fortunately?), his fossils reside at the Field Museum, but the Carbon Hill School Museum has many of Tom's photos and documents.  The museum is located in Carbon Hill, IL.  It has many historically significant photos, artifacts, and documents of the Coal City, Braidwood, and Wilmington area.  The curator, Michele Micetich, is very knowledgeable.  Visit her this summer for a trip back in time to the coal mining days of yesteryear!

These 508-Million-Year-Old Fossils May Be Earth’s Oldest Swimming Jellyfish #fossil #paleontology #jellyfish #cambrian #cnidarian #smithsonianmagazine #smithsonian

An artistic reconstruction shows a group of Burgessomedusa phasmiformis swimming in the Cambrian sea. © Christian McCall

Smithsonian Magazine has a story about ancient jellyfish... fossilized jellyfish.  One of our favorite fossil localities, Mazon Creek, has abundant jellyfish fossils, but otherwise jellyfish are quite rare in the fossil record.  A recent paper in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B described a new jellyfish, Burgessomedusa phasmiformis, which hales from British Columbia, Canada.

Whether spotted pulsing under the waves or stranded on a sandy shore, jellyfish are a common sight on a trip to the beach. The soft-bodied animals are also a connection to the ancient past. Now, researchers have uncovered a 508-million-year-old fossil of a bygone jellyfish, possibly representing the oldest swimming jelly paleontologists have found.

In life, the umbrella-like animal, which paleontologists named Burgessomedusa phasmiformis in a new paper released Tuesday, was about seven inches across and draped with more than 90 short tentacles trailing beneath. Uncovered in the mountains of British Columbia, the fossil confirms that prehistoric jellies floated over reefs where their tentacles could capture prey swimming in the water column, just like living jellyfish.

“Sometimes in paleontology you know a great discovery as soon as it’s made in the field,” says Royal Ontario Museum paleontologist and study author Joseph Moysiuk.

Digging the Past: A Celebration of Fossils, Geology and Archaeology at the Falls of the Ohio State Park, August 26th 2023 #fossil #paleontology #archaeology #indiana #devonian #ohioriver

We received the following announcement from Alan Goldstein of the Falls of the Ohio State Park in southern Indiana.  He gave us an interesting presentation about the Falls of Ohioback in May 2023.  

Digging the Past

August 26^th, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

A Celebration of Fossils, Geology and Archaeology at the Falls of the Ohio State Park,

201 W. Riverside Dr. Clarksville, IN 47129

Co-sponsored by Indiana Geological & Water Survey, the Mineral and Fossil Interest Club, Kentucky Paleontological Society; Falls of the Ohio Archaeological Society; rock with fossils provided by IMI, Garza mineral pile.

Combining the best of archaeology and paleontology while giving kids and adults alike a unique, hands-on experience of both sciences. Free activities.

Over 250 tons of fossil collecting piles! Water to clean your finds.
9:30 AM Hike on the Outer Fossil Beds (3-hours, age 12 & up)
10AM to 3PM hourly fossil bed hikes
Mock archaeology dig
Arts and crafts / Make and takes
Rock, fossil and artifact identification
Indiana Geological & Water Survey activities
Fossil displays
The interpretive Center is closed this year. Reopens October 16, 2023.