This is Mazon Monday post #202. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected]. Thanks!
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This week's Fossil Friday is a beautiful Pecopteris fontainei. P. fontainei is a tree fern from the Mazon Creek fossil deposit. P. fontainei was named by Leo Lesquereux in 1889. Lesquereux worked with a multiple state geologic surveys, eventually writing "Atlas to the Coal Flora of Pennsylvania and the Carboniferous Formation throughout the United States", a three volume publication that was the standard reference for Carboniferous paleobotany for many years. In his 1870 “Report on the Fossil Plants of Illinois”, Lesquereux inadvertently named the Mazon Creek fossil deposit by referring to the Mazon River as a creek.
"At Mazon Creek, the meanders of the stream have dug a broad bed through the bank of shale, and the water, washing for centuries, has uncovered great numbers of concretions and scattered them for miles from their point of origin.”
To learn more about P. fontainei, see Mazon Monday #129.
This fine specimen comes from ESCONI member George Witaszek. George has sent us some very nice fossils over the years... remember his insect? Thanks for the submission, George! Happy Hunting!
