Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Mazon Monday #181: Mariopteris nervosa #fossil #paleontology #seedfern #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #pennsylvanian #illinois

This is Mazon Monday post #181.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

-----------------------------------------------------

Mariopteris nervosa is the most common species of Mariopteris found in the Mazon Creek fossil biota.  It was named by Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart in 1879.  He was a French botanist, who is widely considered the father of Paleobotany.  He lived from 1801 until 1876.  Some of his works were published posthumously in the early 1880's.  He was a prolific writer of books and memoirs and is most known for Histoire des végétaux fossiles ("History of fossil plants").

M. nervosa can be found on page 160 of Jack Wittry's "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek".

Mariopteris nervosa (Brongniart) Zeiller, 1879

1834. Pecopteris nervosa Brongniart: p. 297, pl. 95, fig. 1; pl. 94 = Mariopteris nervosa var. oblongata
1879-80. Pseudopecopteris nervosa Brongniart; Lesquereux: p. 197, pl. 34, figs. 1-3
1925. Mariopteris nervosa Brongniart; Kidston: p. 601, pl. 138, figs. 3, 4; pl. 140, fig. 1; pl. 143, figs. 1, 2; pl. 144, figs. 4-6
1925. Mariopteris muricata var. nervosa (non Brongniart); Noé: pl. 16, figs. 1, 5 (fig. 1 re-figured here as Fig. 2)
1925. Mariopteris muricata Brongniart; Noé: pl. 16, figs. 2, 3
1958. Mariopteris nervosa Brongniart; Langford: p. 257, figs. 466-468
1972. Mariopteris nervosa (Brongniart) Zeiller; Boersma: p. 94, pl. 9, figs. 20, 21
1979. Mariopteris nervosa Brongniart; Janssen: p. 122, fig. 100
1979. Mariopteris muricata; Janssen: (non text) fig. 101

DESCRIPTION: The ultimate pinnae are linear-lanceolate, alternate, and oblique to their rachises. They appear slightly asymmetrical, with the pinnules on the lower side being slightly larger. The pinnules are oblique, confluent at the base, and subtriangular. The sides are convex or straight, and decurrent at the base. Pinnules are rounded at the apex when mature. They become more acute in the small, distal pinnules. The lower basal pinnule displays a prominent lobe on the basiscopic side; most pinnules are entire. The midvein is straight in the lower pinnules. Toward the pinna apex, the midvein becomes progressively more decurrent. The lateral veins are straight, generally immersed and hidden, occasionally inflated, acute to the midvein, and fork once near the base, with the lower-positioned ones often forking again.

REMARKS: Mariopteris nervosa is rare, although the most common Mariopteris in the Mazon Creek flora. The name implies that the veins should appear inflated. This is seldom the case, though they always appear clearly visible.

The "ESCONI Keys to Mazon Creek Plants" has a page describing Mariopteris nervosa and Mariopteris muricata, which was classified as a separate species at the time.

MARIOPTERIS

The fronds are lateral and spirally arranged on a naked primary rachis. The pinnules are large and triangular in form and are prominent, robust, unflattened and leathery. The midvein and veins branching from it are well marked, not systematically as in Pecopteris nor close as in Alethopteris. The base of the pinnule is directly and broadly attached to the rachis. An important characteristic is one or more veins entering the lower base, independent of and below the midvein, direct from the rachis.

Mariopteris nervosa

The rachis is marked with fine parallel lines running its length. The pinnules are triangular to ovate, with smooth margins. The pinnules are oblique to and alternating on the rachis. They are large, 1.5 times as long as wide, and appear leathery and thick. The midvein is prominent, and lateral veins curve out from the midvein and fork, curving back toward the margin. The basal pinnule is often bi- or trilobed.

Mariopteris muricata

M. muricata is similar to M. nervosa. The dentate margins of the pinnules are the primary difference. The venation is less pronounced but also similar. On the lower half of the pinnule, below the midvein, the veins may arise directly from the rachis. The general shape of the pinnule is more triangular than M. nervosa. The pinnules are alternate on the rachis.

Specimens

Field Museum

George's Basement

"A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek"

 

Precious Stone - Last Joliet-Lemont Limestone Quarry Closing #quarry #fossil #paleontology #rocks #flagstone #joliet #limestone #silurian #joliet-Lemont #SugarRunDolomite #dolomite

“I know everybody that knows everything about the stone business,” says quarry owner Larry Bromberek. “There’s nobody that’s gonna do what I do.”

Chicago Magazine has an article about the closing of the last quarry supplying the famous Joliet-Lemont limestone.  Located in Joliet, Bromberek Flagstone has been in business since the 1940's. ESCONI has visited for a few field trips over the years.   Now, it's closing as Larry Bromberek has sold his property.  Back in July when this article was published, he's was selling his remaining quarried rock... we are not sure if there is any left.

Walking over to another section of the quarry, I notice newly revealed stone, angular and gleaming. Limestone chunks of varying sizes are neatly stacked beside other kinds of stone brought from quarries around the nation. Bromberek imports quartzite, bluestone, porphyry, and sandstone to Joliet, but limestone dominates the scenery. Gesturing at a long stretch of unquarried rock resembling uncooked tofu, he points out the thin layers of long-dried clay in between. A Caterpillar track loader pulls it up, its bucket’s teeth biting into the rock, busting the clay and bringing up the stone in thicknesses of one inch, two inches, three, or more. Limestone is fickle. “It comes up naturally the way it wants to come up,” Bromberek explains.

Limestone is a sedimentary rock made from the remains of ancient sea life — corals, shells, and bones resting at the bottom of long-gone oceans —  that are eventually compressed into the material we know and love. That means the quarry doubles as a geologic museum. “We find fossils and stuff,” Bromberek says. “Trilobites, cephalopods, coral, and stuff like that.” The company’s website offers loose limestone at 14 cents a pound or $280 a ton, and includes this guarantee: “Every stone, no matter the size, thickness, or if it contains a rare fossil, is the exact same price per pound.” No major finds, à la Sue the T. rex, of course, though the occasional rock hound has shown up and left with some stony souvenir.

To read more about Joliet-Lemont limestone, see "What Do You Know About Joliet-Lemont Limestone?" by Joe Kubal.

 

 

Field Museum Fossil ID Day 2023 - September 9th, 2023 #fossil #paleontology #id #fieldmuseum @FieldMuseum @SUETheTrex

The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago is holding Fossil ID Day 2023 on Saturday, September 9th, 2023.

Found a rock that looks like a dinosaur fossil? Snapped a photo of a bird you don’t recognize? Our scientists will examine your object and give you their best identification during our annual ID Day! Members of the public can bring in remnants of the natural world—including clean, dry bones, fossils, rocks, meteorites, seashells, artifacts, and photographs of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects—to be identified by the Field’s scientists.

Please leave anything that’s alive (or was recently) at home.

Nothing to bring in? We'll have specimens from the museum’s collections on view.

Illinois residents enjoy free Basic admission on ID Day.

Fossil Friday #177: Euproops danae #fossil #paleontology #horseshoecrab #crab #FossilFriday #MazonCreek #pennsylvanian

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #177.  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!

-----------------------------------------------------

Today's fossil is a very nice horseshoe crab from the Mazon River.  The owner of this beauty is Lil Magnussen.   Lil is a long time ESCONI member, who rarely misses our Braceville field trips.  She's been collecting Mazon Creek fossils since the 1960's!

Euproops danae was described by Fielding Bradford Meek in 1867.  Meek was an American geologist and paleontologist who specialized in invertebrates.  E. danae  was highlighted in Mazon Monday #21. 

Thanks for the contribution, Lil!

Throwback Thursday #178: Looking Back At ESCONI for September 2023 #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday

This is Throwback Thursday #178.  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!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We had to take a break for the summer as there wasn't much happening in ESCONI history during the summer months.

From Brag Night September 1961

25 Years Ago - September 1998

• The General Meeting's topic was "Some Insights Into the Moundbuilders of Cahokia".  The presentation was by Dr. John Hobgood a professor of Anthropology at Chicago State University.
• There was a field trip to the Cave In Rock region of Illinois for the Labor Day Weekend.
• Karen Nordquists' "Dino News" had some hot news about birds and dinosaurs.  Some amazing fossils were coming out of China.
• The Paleontology Study Group was having their annual "Brag Night".
• Minerology was discussing minerals of Arkansas.

50 Years Ago - September 1973

• Jim and Sylvia Konecny announced they were moving to Prescott, AZ.
• The Labor Day Weekend Field Trip was to Windsor, Ontario.
• The General Meeting and all the study groups were holding "Brag Nights".
• Dr. Stuart Striever was presented with an honorary membership.  He was a long time member and a professor of archaeology.
• Bill Kelly wrote about his trip to Lida in Nevada.  The trip was in 1910!  He met his uncle Captain "Yellowstone" Kelly.
• The newsletter republished a Sun Times article about Dave Douglass and his "Dave's Down To Earth Rock Shop" in Evanston, IL.  Dave is a long time ESCONI member and his shop is still open!

70 Years Ago - September 1953

• ESCONI had 281 member in September 1953.
• There were three presentations at the General Meeting.  Roy Beghtol presented "Ramblings from Michigan, Ohio, Arkansas, and Missouri".  Howard Knight discussed "South, West, and Southwest of Chicago".  And, George Malott talked about "The Big Dig at Thorton".
• "Night School" started with classes on Geology, Mineralogy, and Jewelry Making.  Classes were held at Downers Grover High School.  See Throwback Thursday #144 for more information.
• There was a field trip to Crown Point, Indiana to collect fossils.
• Otho Hagernan wrote about collecting Keokuk Geodes. People have been collecting geodes there since at least the mid 1800's.

ESCONI September 2023 General Meeting - Friday, September 8th, 2023 at 8:00 PM via Zoom - "Tropical rainforests - A 300-million-year-old history” #paleontology #fossil #evolution #paleobotany #plants #MazonCreek

The September 2023 General Meeting will be held on Friday, September 8th, 2023 at 8:00 PM via Zoom.  Our speaker is Fabiany Herrera, who is the Assistant Curator of Paleobotany at the Field Museum.  Mazon Monday #178 was about a recent paper by Fabiany.

Approximately eighty plant taxa have been recognized from the Mazon Creek Lagerstätte, but few have been studied in detail, and in some cases the systematic affinities of these fossils need reevaluation. The three-dimensional (3D) preservation of Mazon Creek fossil plants makes them ideal candidates for study using x-ray micro-computed tomography (CT). The new research by Dr. Herrera and colleagues show that CT can provide excellent detail on the three-dimensional structure of Mazon Creek plant fossils. Dr. Herrera will also talk about The Early Cretaceous (~145–100 Ma) and early Cenozoic floras from northern South America and will show how the impact of the end-Cretaceous extinction shaped the evolutionary history of the tropical rainforests. 

Topic: ESCONI General Meeting "Tropical rainforests - A 300-million-year-old history"

Time: Sep 8, 2023 08:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83139613959?pwd=eXVtQ3dQTUJobUtXVk4xdHBvbGsydz09

 

Meeting ID: 831 3961 3959

Passcode: 008558

 

---

 

One tap mobile

+13126266799,,83139613959#,,,,*008558# US (Chicago)

+13092053325,,83139613959#,,,,*008558# US

 

---

 

Dial by your location

• +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

• +1 309 205 3325 US

• +1 305 224 1968 US

• +1 646 931 3860 US

• +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)

• +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)

• +1 507 473 4847 US

• +1 564 217 2000 US

• +1 669 444 9171 US

• +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

• +1 689 278 1000 US

• +1 719 359 4580 US

• +1 253 205 0468 US

• +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

• +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

• +1 360 209 5623 US

• +1 386 347 5053 US

 

Meeting ID: 831 3961 3959

Passcode: 008558

 

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kek7QetPMv

 

Fossil of Tiny, Extinct Whale Discovered in Egypt, Named for King Tut #fossil #paleontology #whale #egypt #evolution

Egyptian paleontologists Abdullah Gohar, Mohamed Sameh and Hesham Sallam are part of the study team that discovered the fossil and identified the new species of basilosaurid whale. Hesham Sallam / Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center

Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the discovery of a new whale species.  The new whale, Tutcetus rayanensis, is named for the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.  It lived about 41 million years ago.  The team of Egyptian research discovered the fossil about 25 miles from the Wadi Al-Hitan World Heritage Site in Egypt, an area rich with whale specimens.  Details can be found in a recent paper in the journal Communications Biology.

It’s been a record-smashing month for ancient whales. Last week, scientists unveiled fossils of what could have been the heftiest animal to ever live, a prehistoric whale that clocked in at 400,000 pounds. And now, paleontologists have announced a groundbreaking find on the other end of the spectrum: a tiny, extinct whale that weighed only 410 pounds. The little creature grew just about eight feet long—or the size of a modern-day bottlenose dolphin.

“These findings together exemplify the remarkable diversity that characterized the Eocene marine ecosystems,” study author and paleontologist Hesham Sallam, a paleontologist at Mansoura University and the American University in Cairo, tells Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz.

ESCONI September 2023 Newsletter has been emailed out to all members

The ESCONI September 2023 Newsletter has been emailed out to all members. If you are a member and you did not receive the newsletter, please send an email to [email protected] and let us know.

 

”We Were Freaking Out” – Scientists Explore Dinosaur Coliseum #fossil #paleontology #alaska #dinosaur #alaska #footprints #trackways

The Coliseum site is viewed from above. The once-horizontal rocks are now nearly vertical, exposing many hundreds of tracks on flatirons of resistant rock. The dimples on the rock faces are dinosaur tracks. Credit: Photo by Patrick Druckenmiller

SciTechDaily has a story about the discovery of extensive dinosaur trackways in Alaska.  The trackways were found in Denali National Park and Preserve by researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  It is the largest documented single dinosaur track site in Alaska.  The area of the tracks spans the size of one and a half football fields and displays footprints from numerous dinosaur species.  The fossils date to about 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, when Alaska was much warmer than it is today.  The details were published in the journal Historical Biology.

At first glance, the site is unremarkable in the context of the park’s vast landscape: just a layered, rocky outcrop rising 20-some stories from its base.

“When our colleagues first visited the site, they saw a dinosaur trackway at the base of this massive cliff,” said Pat Druckenmiller, senior author of the paper and director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. “When we first went out there, we didn’t see much either.”

Stewart recalled being initially underwhelmed when he approached the site at the end of a seven-hour hike. Then dusk approached, and the team took another look.

Mazon Monday #180: Grundy County Historical Society Museum #fossil #paleontology #history #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #grundycounty #illinois

This is Mazon Monday post #180.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

-----------------------------------------------------

The Grundy County Historical Society Museum is a hidden gem in Morris, IL.  Their mission is to house, preserve, and exhibit objects pertaining to Grundy County's history: cultural, social, geological, and anthropological.  Established in 1923, they had a centennial celebration on May 7th, 2023.  The building is located at 510 W Illinois Ave, in Morris, IL.

We stopped by the museum recently and had a nice discussion with the museum's curator, Debbie Steffes.  She's very knowledgeable and nimble with the microfilm reader.  Here, she is showing us the George Bedford display.  He was an amateur photographer.  His many photographs have helped document the history of Morris and the surrounding area during the early 1900's.  The boxes under her arm are some of his glass negatives.  He was also an early Mazon Creek fossil collector.

As Mazon Creek fossil enthusiasts, we were mostly interested in their fossil displays.  They have quite a few very nice specimens, including an absolutely gorgeous Annularia inflata with eight whorls!

An Asterophyllites equisetiformis with twelve whorls!

Who doesn't like Alethopteris?!?

Lycopodites meeki

Other Mazon Creek fossils on display.

This case contains fossils from ESCONI member Walter Lietz and his friend Wilbur "Wib" Louis.  There's also a small Tully Monster donated by Keith Holm.

They have a bucket of concretions from the garage of J.C. Carr, who is another early Mazon Creek fossil collector from the 1800's.

Jeremy Zimmerman and I in front of the Mastodon display.   By the way, there have been numerous Mastodons discovered in Grundy County and around Morris.

After you get a chance to visit the museum, wander on over to the Tully Monster Pub and Grill.  It's located just a few blocks away at 104 Liberty St.

 

Paleontology Is Far More Than New Fossil Discoveries #fossil #paleontology #dinosaur #evolution #science

The fossilized skeleton of a 230-million-year-old carnivorous dinosaur. Credit: Carl de Souza/AFP via Getty Images

Roy Plotnick has a nice piece about paleontology over on Scientific American.  Paleontology is much, much more than just old bones and fossils.  Its research provides an opportunity to understand the Earth both past, present, and future.  Roy is always an insightful writer.  It's good see him on a larger stage.

But the headlines over exciting new fossils, especially new dinosaurs, grossly underestimate the true importance of paleontology. Its real significance lies in how such discoveries illuminate the grand history of life on Earth. From its beginnings, more than three billion years ago, to the present day, fossils record how life adapted or perished in the face of major environmental challenges.

Just like the ones we face today. Knowing this history is critical to our response to just such challenges: climate change, ocean acidification, mass extinctions and other perils, mainly human-made, facing the biosphere and humanity. Alarmingly, the field is declining, just when we need it most.

PBS Eons: Did a Tsunami Swallow Part of Europe? #geology #europe #england #doggerland #tsunami

PBS Eons has a new video on Youtube.  This one is about the England...what happened to Doggerland?  What was it and how did it disappear?

What happened to the piece of prime prehistoric real estate known as Doggerland? While a massive megatsunami might have drowned it for good, the underlying reason that it now lies under the sea may have actually been the same thing that made it so great in the first place.

Fossil Friday #176: Aphlebia crispa #fossil #paleontology #MazonCreek #FossilFriday #illinois #aphlebia

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #176.  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!

-----------------------------------------------------

Fossil Friday has become a family affair as today's gorgeous Aphlebia crispa comes from Heath McDonald, who is the father of Caden McDonald who submitted last week's Calymene celebra.  Aphlebia is a strange leafy fossil that looks a little like lettuce.   It is very rare and this is a splendid example from the Mazon River in Morris, IL.

Thanks for the contribution, Heath!

Pre-cleaning

After cleaning, which really brings out the beauty of this rare specimen!