This is Mazon Monday post #222. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected].
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Robert and Violetta Wihitfield collected fossils with George Langford (Mazon Monday #220) in the 1940s and 1950s. Langford curated the Mazon Creek fossils he donated to the Field Museum, working there from 1948 until 1961. Both Robert and Violetta are listed as Associates in the Department of Geology at the Field Museum from the 1947 until 1978. Robert is listed as a DDS (doctor of dentist science). Robert Whitfield was there in 1958 for "George Langford Night (Flashback Friday #41)". The event was held to highlight the release of Langford's first book "The Wilmington Coal Flora from a Pennsylvanian Deposit in Will County, Illinois". Whitfield is on the left.
By all accounts, both Whitfields were successful collectors. Violetta was president of her sorority Delta Zeta from the 1960s until the 1980s. The December 1949 edition of "The Lamp" (the official magazine of Delta Zeta) lists her paleontological accomplishments up until that time.
Violetta in 1949
"Vi" the paleobotanist.
The Museum of Natural History and Science
(Field Museum) Annual lists: "Dr. and Mrs. R. H. Whitfield, Associate Paleobotanists."Director of Province VII has the unique distinction of probably being the only Delta Zeta to have a fossil named after her! One of her "finds" is now named "Neuropteris Whitfieldia." George Langford, world-known paleobotanist with whom she and her husband work, decided against "Violetta" as there were no flowers in that period!
The Whitfields chiefly collect fossils of the Pennsylvanian period in the world famous Mazon Creek area , which is now the strip mine area between Joliet and Coal City, Illinois.
"Vi" says: "We work quite regularly every spring and fall. This is a family hobby. For many years we have worked at the museum on Wednesday afternoons, in the laboratory. Bob is doing most of the work right now. He has beautiful slides and does some lecturing-last summer to the Kennecot Club of Scientists."We also have worked in the Florrissant area in Colorado in the summers of 1948-49. My son Jack found four rare fish fossils-just a part of the carload we brought back. However wherever we go, we collect-Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming even the lead mines of Galena, Illinois."
The seed fern species mentioned was eventually named Neuropteris violetta, even though it wasn't a flower. N. violetta appears on page 220 of Langford's first book.
Neuropteris violetta, new species
Description: Fragmentary frond with pinnae distant and at a wide angle alternating on the rachis, pinnae attached to the rachis by a long footstalk; pinna composed of a pair of rounded ovate basal pinnules with footstalk attachment, venation flabellate, separated from a large tongue-shaped terminal pinnule with thin distant venation, midvein indistinct, veins forking 2-3 times, curving gradually and meeting the margins at an acute angle.
There are six pairs of pinnae with upper portion of terminal pinnule missing so that the precise entire form is unknown. The pinnae are not flattened and stand out prominently from the matrix, The venation is clearly marked. The particularly novel feature is the long footstalk in combination with thin rather distant venation slightly curved.
Holotype Fig. 2. CNHM PP 2602 collected by Mrs. Robert H. (Violetta) Whitfield in the waste heaps of Section 29, Wilmington Township, Will County, Illinois.
Georgesbasement.com has many interesting little stories. One of them is about Violetta's four insects. All of the insect specimens were found in the Goldblatt mine locality.
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Some of the information in this post was found with the help of Melissa Anderson, Librarian at the Field Museum. Thanks, Melissa!
