Cyathocarpus arborea is one of the rarer species of fern in the Mazon Creek deposit. It was originally named as Filicites arborescens by Ernst Freiedrich, Freiherr von Schlotheim in 1820. Schlotheim was a German paleontologist and pollitician who lived from 1764 to 1832. He created a very extensive collection of fossils, many of them Carboniferous plants. In 1804, he published descriptions and illustrations of some of his best specimens. Filicites arborescens was reclassified as Cyathocarpus by Frederick Ernest Weiss (1865-1953) in 1869.
Ernst Friedrich, Baron von Schlotheim.
C. arborea appears on page 101 in Jack Wittry's "A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek".
1820. Filicites arborescens Schlotheim: p. 404 1825. Pecopteris arborea Sternberg: p. 18 1834. Pecopteris arborescens Schlotheim; Brongniart: p. 310, pl. 102, figs. 1, 2; pl. 103, figs. 2, 3 1879-80. Pecopteris arborescens Schlotheim; Lesquereux: p. 230, pl. 41, figs. 6, 7 1899. Pecopteris ef. arborescens; White: p. 78, pl. 44, fig. 3 1924. Asterotheca arborescens Schlotheim; Kidston: p. 483, pl. 114, fig. 1 1924. Asterotheca cyathea (non Schlotheim); Kidston: pl. 115, fig. 1, (non text) 1951. Pecopteris arborescens Schlotheim; Corsin: p. 326, pls. 170-173 1958. Asterotheca arborescens Schlotheim; Langford: p. 159, fig. 269 1969. Pecopteris arborescens Schlotheim; Darrah: p. 130, pl. 11 fig. 1 (?)2; pl. 13, fig. 3; pl. 74, fig. 1; pl. 79, fig. 3
DESCRIPTION: The penultimate pinnae (see Fig. 1) are linear-lanceolate and sharply taper to blunt lobes at their apices. The ultimate pinna is straight, of an equal width for its entire length, and terminates in a blunt lobe. The rachis is straight and heavy. The pinnules are alternate, closely placed, about twice as long as wide, about 5 mm or less in length, straight-sided, nearly rectangular in appearance, and free all the way to the pinna tip. They arise at a right angle or very slightly oblique to the rachis. The midvein is straight. The lateral veins are straight and simple or, very rarely, may divide once. The venation is often obscured by a villous coating. The sori have an asterothecoid appearance with 4 or 5 sporangia.
REMARKS: Cyathocarpus arborea is very rare. For nearly 200 years, this fossil form had the name arborescens, given by Schlotheim. It has since been ruled by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) (Art. 13.1f) that all of Schlotheim's names predate the cutoff period for valid taxonomic names. The name arborescens is now considered a junior synonym to arborea.
George Langford used the name Asterotheca arborescens in his 1958 book "The Wilmington Coal Flota from a Pennsylvanian Deposit in Will County, Illinois". It can be found on page 159.
Asterotheca arborescens. Schlotheim
This species may be recognized by its pinnae which are long and very narrow, sides even and parallel to near the apex. The pinnules are close, 3/16 inch long and less, and half as wide. The veins do not fork, 4a.
Specimens
Langford specimen
Field Museum specimen PP58269. Collected by Jim and Sylvia Konecny in 1966. Donated to the Field Museum in 2017.
Cystoid from a field trip to Napoleon - from a University of Kentucky website.
There will be a field trip for ESCONI members on Saturday, October 26, 2024, to the quarry just east of Napoleon, Indiana. We need to meet, no exceptions, at the quarry entrance at 8:30 a.m. EDT. We have the chance to collect Silurian (Osgood Member of the Salamonie Dolomite--digging may be required) and possibly Ordovician rocks. This quarry is located southeast of Indianapolis, IN. Consider the distance when making your plans.
Rules are as follows:
You must register to attend this trip, and must be an ESCONI member as of October 12, 2024.
Everyone in your party must be at least 18 years of age.
The attendance limit is 25.
The address of the quarry is 8792 N County Rd 300W, Batesville, IN. It is located just east of Napoleon IN (US 421) on SR 229/48.
Everyone will sign a waiver.
You must have the following safety gear: sturdy (preferably steel-toed) boots, hard hat, safety glasses, and safety vest.
When you register for the trip, you will 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 John Catalani an email with the number of ESCONI 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 and attach the two documnets. If you do not hear back from him within that time, send it again!
NOTE: John will be away from his computer until 09-30-2024. So, requests will be answered beginning that date.
There's a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about the origin of our moon.
Where did our unique moon come from? It turns out that lunar rocks brought back by Apollo astronauts are a clue, pointing to the origin of our closest cosmic companion, an origin even stranger than you might imagine…
This is the "Fossil Friday" post #232. 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!
Knob Noster is a fossil deposit contemporaneous with Mazon Creek, which dates to about 308 million years ago. Currently, the Knob Noster locality is thought to have be located across a large bay from the Mazon Creek locality. Both were just south of the equator in the tropical Pennsylvanian seas. The red dot below represents Wilmington, IL 300 million years ago. Looking at the outline of Missouri, Knob Noster is in the middle west portion of Missouri, just southeast of Kansas City.
Paleo Map from https://dinosaurpictures.org/
Fossils from Knob Noster are found in concretions similar to Mazon Creek. But, the Matrix is quite a bit different, being much lighter in both color and weight.
We've featured Knob Noster fossils for a few Fossil Fridays... Fossil Friday #84 - a spider, Fossil Friday #87 - Neuropteris vermicularis, and Fossil Friday #98 - Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri. All of those specimens were available at the 2021 MAPS show in Springfield, IL. They were sold by Chuck Barlow, who lives in Knob Noster, MO. Chuck digs up the concretions from a deposit on his property. He recently reached out with these photos of some new beautiful fossils. These will be available for purchase at the MAPS show from October 18th - 20th, 2024 in Springfield, IL. In 2021, he had a large selection available. So, if you make it to MAPS in a few weeks, make sure you stop by his booth.
Thanks for sharing, Chuck!
Annularia sp.
Annularia sphenophylloides
Palaeoxyris sp.
A eurypterid... Windor, MO, a locality near Knob Noster is known for these.
This is Throwback Thursday #233. 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!
ESCONI held a geode field trip to Vickers Geodes in Hamilton, IL in August 2024. The area around Hamilton, IL, and Keokuk, IA, is home to several sites where geode collectiing is popular. Throwback Thursday #14 looked back at past ESCONI geode field trips to the area. But what exactly is a geode, and how do they form? Below is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page explaining their formation.
Geodes can form in any cavity, but the term is usually reserved for more or less rounded formations in igneous and sedimentary rocks. They can form in gas bubbles in igneous rocks, such as vesicles in basaltic lava; or, as in the American Midwest, in rounded cavities in sedimentary formations. After rock around the cavity hardens, dissolved silicates and/or carbonates are deposited on the inside surface. Over time, this slow feed of mineral constituents from groundwater or hydrothermal solutions allows crystals to form inside the hollow chamber. Bedrock containing geodes eventually weathers and decomposes, leaving them present at the surface if they are composed of resistant material such as quartz.[1]
When cut in half, visible bands corresponding to varied stages of precipitation may at times show patterns that reveal points of fluid entry into the cavity and/or varied colors corresponding to changes in chemistry.
The December 1972 edition of the ESCONI newsletter had a small article that discussed tthe "Origin of Geodes". The article was reprinted from the "Illinois State Geological Survey Miscellaneous Pamphlet". The references are listed as an article by Ray Smith Bassler "The Formation of Geodes with Remarks on the Silicification of Fossils" published in 1908 and another by Francis M. Van Tuyl "The Origin of the Geodes of the Keokuk Beds" published in 1912. The second one is particularily relevant to the recent ESCONI field trip.
ORIGIN OF GEODES
Geodes are usually globular although they may also be irregular, discoid, or sometimes shaped very much like fossils. They are usually found in limestone, but they may also form in shaly rocks. Most of them are hollow, but many have become filled with minerals growing from the walls inward.
A typical geode sawed or broken in two will disclose a sequence of layers from the out-side-in as follows: (1) a thin layer of clay: (2) a layer of noncrystalline chalcedony; (3) crystals (usually quartz) projecting into the hollow interior. Less commonly calcite or dolomite crystals will form next to the outer chalcedony layer instead of quartz, and sometimes the inside of a geode will be nothing but chalcedony; and (4) a deposit of olin, aragonite, millerite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, limonite, smithsonite, malachite gypsum, fluorite, barite, marcasite, geothite, pyrolusite, and possibly tenorite and chalcocite. Perhaps the most thought provoking and rarest of geodes are those which contain petroleum or some thicker bituminous material.
By what processes and under what conditions did these interesting features originate? There are many theories, none of which are completely adequate. The following discussion is an attempt to compile some of them into a brief summary.
First of all, it is generally agreed that geodes are cavity fillings. The agreement ends here, for the stumbling block is the origin of the initial cavity. One idea is that the cavities are "vugs" caused by gas pockets or by shrinkage of the rock. However, vugs are integral parts of the rock in which they are contained, whereas geodes are complete entities which can be broken out of the rock formation with comparative ease. Some geologists have suggested that they are merely special types of concretions, but geodes grow from the outer shell inward, whereas concretions build up from a central core. Bassler (1908, pp.133-154) has shown that some geodes originate in fossil cavities and upon growth of the geode, the fossil bursts. Upon further growth, the fragments of the fossil are dissolved or absorbed by the growing geode and are lost. Van Tuyl (1916, pp.34-42) believes that the original cavity is the space which was occupied by a concretion. Concretions are easily removed from the rock by percolating waters and would thus leave a likely cavity in which a geode could grow. The fact that some geodes contain calcareous clay concretions lends support to this theory.
Pettijohn (1957,pp.204-205) gives a rather complex process by which geodes grow after the formation of an initial cavity. This process may be summarized in the following steps: (1) a cavity is formed in the rock by some means; (2) a salty solution fills the cavity and pore spaces in the rock; (3) a layer of gelatinous silica is then deposited, isolating the salt solution in the cavity; (4) later the water in the surrounding pore spaces becomes fresh. This sets up what is known as an osmotic cell. This particular osmotic cell consists of two different types of solutions separated by a membrane of gelatinous silica which will allow the fresh solution to pass into the geode cavity, but will not allow the salt to pass out of it; (5) the fresh water flowing into the cavity by osmosis builds up internal pressure which pushes on the walls of the geode; (6) this pressure, exerted outward against the surrounding limestone, dissolves the limestone, leaving an insoluble residue which becomes the thin clay layer on the outer surface of the geode; (7) the above process continues until the salt solution is so diluted by the incoming fresh water that the osmotic cell no longer operates. The geode has reached maturity; (8) gradually the silica gel. dehydrates and crystallizes; (9) shrinking and cracking then follows: (10) finally, mineral-bearing waters flowing through the cracks deposit the innermost layer of minerals. These cracks may eventually seal, leaving a completely closed geode.
The process by which some of the geodes of the Warsaw beds come to contain petroleum is also very much a mystery. Frank Fleener (1961) gives an interesting account of the problem. He envisions the petroleum having migrated up into the Warsaw Formation from the oil-bearing rocks to the south. There partially formed geodes were found with loose quartz crystals (some doubly terminated) adrift in the thick bitumen. The influx of the bituminous material stopped the growth of geodes, but the mechanism by which the bitumen was enclosed and hermetically sealed remains a matter of conjecture. We believe that many of these geodes are hermetically sealed because. the bituminous material will sometimes squirt out with force when the geode is punctured. This phenomenon is presumably due to the sudden expansion of the material when the pressure under which it was formed is relieved.
A more plausible explanation for the petroleum is that it was derived from the enclosing shale and shaly limestone. The weight of overlying sedimentary rocks could easily have freed hydrocarbons from the organic matter in the shale and shaly limestone. The hydrocarbons then migrated to zones of lowest pressure, and these most likely would be cavities inside the geodes. It appears logical that such a pressure difference would exist because the hard shell of the geode could withstand a great amount of lithostatic pressure.
The above discussion of the origin of geodes is incomplete and generalized, but we hope that it will stimulate interest in these remarkable geatures. Perhaps as you break them open in search of beautiful crystals, you will reflect upon their history and feel a greater appreciation for the intricate processes by which nature is continuously altering the crust of the earth.
REFERENCES
Bassler, R.S., The Formation of Geodes, with remarks on the Silicification of Fossils: National Museum Proc. vol.35, 1908, pp. 133-154.
Van Tuyl, F. M., The Origin of the Geodes of the Keokuk Beds: Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, vol 19, 1912, pp. 169-172.
via Gem City Rock News
- reprinted from Illinois State Geological Survey Miscellaneous Pamphlet
An artist’s rendering of the Earth surrounded by a temporary ring of debris 466 million years ago.Credit...Oliver Hull
The New York Times has a nice review of a study published in the journal Science Direct that postulates the Earth had a ring during the Ordovician Period, some 466 million years ago. There are numerous (21!) impact craters that date to the period. At the time, Earth was an island world, with life being mostly marine.
Scientists have long speculated about the origin of the Ordovician meteor event, when Earth was bombarded by space rocks at an unusually high rate, producing dozens of craters and sediments packed with meteorites. Previous research implicated a large asteroid that broke apart in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter and sent rocky shrapnel into the inner solar system, where it pelted our planet.
But what if this ancient object burst into pieces at our doorstep? Researchers led by Andy Tomkins, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Monash University in Australia, envision an asteroid that passed within thousands of miles of Earth, close enough to be ripped apart by the planet’s gravity. The debris from the breakup then coalesced in a ring around the Equator, a scenario that may be linked to dramatic changes in climate and biodiversity at the time.
Dr. Kenneth Lacovara with a 6.5-foot femur from Dreadnoughtus found in Patagonia. Photo by Robert Clark.
NPR's Ted Radio Hour has a video segment with paleontologist Ken Lacovara speaking on the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period. That event took out the non-avian dinosaurs and led to the rise of the mammals.
Paleontologist Ken Lacovara is founder of a new museum and fossil park in New Jersey where visitors can see how dinosaurs lived 66 million years ago before an asteroid wiped out 75% of life on earth.
About Ken Lacovara
Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara is the founder and director of the Edelman Fossil Park and Museum in Mantua Township, New Jersey.
He discovered the remains of Dreadnoughtus schrani, one of Earth's largest dinosaurs, in Patagonia along with several other extinct animals of the Late Cretacaous period from around the world.
Lacovara has a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Delaware and is the founding Dean of the School of Earth & Environment at Rowan University. His book is Why Dinosaurs Matter.
This segment of the TED Radio Hour was produced by James Delahoussaye and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at [email protected].
Dresden Lakes was productive Mazon Creek fossil locality just east of Morris, IL. It was known for large concretions with detailed fossils in dark colors, grays and blacks. Unfortunately, the dark colors can be hard to photograph. Large concretions generally means large fossils. Plants were very common as it was a terrestrial deposit. However, interesting animals, including fish and xxx, were found there. We've sold a few specimens from Dresden at ESCONI shows.
The photos below came from Kathy Dedina, who was president of ESCONI in the 1990s. Kathy, along with her sister Judy, were long-time ESCONI members. They had an extensive fossil and mineral collection, a significant portion of which was generously donated to ESCONI in 2016.
These photos are great... the ground is clear with not much vegetation, so concretions should have been easy to find. Just imagine crawling around on those hills picking up some awesome possibilities...
Comparison of the micromorphology of a chewing surface of the modern giant panda (left) with Kretzoiarctos (center) and the modern brown bear (right): the pattern of grooves and cavities is caused by wear to the teeth. It is characteristic of the different mechanical properties of the food. Credit: Alexander Daasch, Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Museum of Nature Hamburg, and Nikolaos Kargopoulos
Phys.org has a nice summary of a new paper in the journal Papers in Palaeontology and Geobios, which sheds light on the ancestry of the giant panda. The fossils were found at the Hammerschmiede clay pit, a fossil site in southern Germany that dates to about 11.5 million years ago. Fossil teeth of Kretzoiarctos beatrix, which is thiught to be the oldest ancestor of the modern giant panda, are found a this locatity. Researchers looked at the macro- and micromorphology of these teeth and found clues to the dietary habits of these animals.
At the macro level, the form of the teeth changes depending on their role in processing food, which gives an indication of an animal's general primary sources of food. At the micro level of the dental surface, scratches and pits can be found that are caused by food particle contact with the tooth.
"The characteristics of these surface changes can give clues to the dietary habits of an animal in a short period before its death," says the scientist.
The research team compared the macro- and micromorphology of the Kretzoiarctos teeth with those of brown bears, polar bears, South American spectacled bears and both the giant pandas of today and extinct giant pandas. They concluded that the bear from Hammerschmiede did not specialize in hard plants like the modern panda, but nor was it a pure carnivore like the polar bear.
The diet of the extinct species was more like that of a modern brown bear and contained both plant and animal elements. "These results are important to our understanding of the evolution of bears and the development of herbivory in giant pandas. It turns out that Kretzoiarctos beatrix, the oldest of the pandas was a generalist. Specialization in the panda's diet only came about late in its evolution," says Böhme.
The ring's center is decorated with a garnet or red glass setting. University of Aberdeen
Smithsonian Magazine's "Smart News" has a piece on the discovery of a 1,000 year old ring in Scotland. The ring was found by a volunteer on an archaeology dig led by a researcher at the University of Aberdeen. The ring is believe to have belonged to the Picts, a group of people that lived parts of present-day northeastern and eastern Scotland during the early part of the Middle Ages. The Picts were called the "Painted People" because they decorated their skin using body paint (or possibly tattooing).
“I was just clearing the floor of a building, and at first I saw a metal pin—and then, lo and behold, there was the ring,” Ralph tells BBC Scotland News. “It was only when I showed it to the volunteer next to me and he got excited that I thought it might really be something. You are always a bit surprised when you get something like that.”
When Ralph showed the artifact to Noble, the archaeologist knew immediately that it was something special.
“What he handed over was incredible,” says Noble in the statement. “Even before the conservation work, we could see it was something really exciting, as despite more than 1,000 years in the ground, we could see glints of the possible garnet setting.”
This is the "Fossil Friday" post #231. 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!
Ah, the Blob! Did you see Mazon Monday #227 a few weeks ago?... That post was called "Ode to a Blob". Essexella asherae is a classic Mazon Creek fossil. It was described in 1979 and named for Helen Asher, a prolific Mazon Creek collector (see Fossil Friday #158). Helen was known to autograph the back of Essexella concretions.
There's been some recent controversy around the Blob, is it a sea anemone or is it a jellyfish? Can we call it a "jellenome" (see Mazon Monday #155)? There's still quite a bit of discussion. Roy Plotnick did a great job making his case at the 2022 Mazon Creek Open House.
This beautiful specimen has quite a bit of detail. The photos were sent in by Peter Rock Jr. You've probably heard of his grandfather Richard Rock, one of the Mazon Creek old timers, who has been an ESCONI member for almost as long. Specimens really look like a jellyfish... or do they? Send us what you think at [email protected]
Location: In-person at College of DuPage: Technical Education Center (TEC) Building - Room 1038B (Map).
Presented by: John Catalani
Bring your fossil specimens that you have collected over the Summer season this year, or some other time, to the in-person meeting. These fossils could have been collected on ESCONI Field Trips or individually. You do not have to have all specimens identified ahead of time. Bring your specimens in, with the location where they were collected, and probably one or another member can help identify them.
Paleontology is a field science and, as most of you know, the fun is in discovering new specimens that no one has seen yet--except you. And, as a bonus, discussing your finds with other collectors is part of the in-person Club experience.
This is Throwback Thursday #232. 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!
So, Sue Hendrickson had a secret visit with her beloved namesake SUE the T. rex in July. The Sneed had an article in the Sun Times in July. Have a look on one of the archive sites, if you can't read it.
Archaeologist Sue Hendrickson visits her beloved “Sue the T-rex,” the world’s most complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil at the Field Museum on Wednesday. Provided
Before we get nasty letters, Sue is an archaeologist, not a paleontologist. That caption is not a mistake or misunderstanding of archaeology vs paleontology... although, I did need to correct the spelling of archaeologist. There's an 'a' in there! Unfortunately, later in the article, the use of "field paleontologist" seems to be confused with archaeologist. Coincidently, a few of the Field Museum's Egyptian artifacts are associated with Sue's archaeology work.
Sue was a volunteer with the Black Hills Institute when she found SUE. That was way back in 1990. This was her first vist to the Field Museum since 2010 for the 10th Anniversary of the SUE's opening. Here's what Sneed wrote of her momentous find.
A digger, a diver, a searcher for sunken treasure, Hendrickson discovered the legendary dinosaur on a wild card’s chance. She was hiking with her golden retriever, Gypsy, on the “hunch” that “there might be something in an exposed cliff” she spotted on a boiling hot, foggy day in South Dakota.
The discovery became an international sensation.
“I still can’t believe it,” Hendrickson said. “I was a bit worn out after sleeping outside for two months while digging for dinosaur bones that day … and we were one day away from the end of the season when we developed a flat tire,” Hendrickson told me back in 1997.
“So Gypsy and I decided to take a hike to a butte we missed while the rest of our crew from the Black Hills Institute drove 30 miles back into town to get the tire fixed.
“I got lost, it was foggy and I walked in a circle for two hours. The fog finally lifted. Hours later, we reached the butte. It wasn’t long before I saw three articulated vertebrae exposed in the cliff.”
The rest is history — millions of years of it.
After a long controvery, court trial, and auction, SUE ended up at the Field Museum in 1997. The $8 million price tag was covered generously by McDonald's Corp and Walt Disney.
Fossil hunter Sue Hendrickson smiles at the unveiling of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton “Sue” that Hendrickson discovered and bears her name at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in May 2000. John Zich/AFP/Getty Images
An illustration of Longipteryx, a fossil bird with unusually strong teeth right at the tip of its beak. Credit: Ville Sinkkonen.
Phys.org has a piece about birds with teeth. As rare as hen's teeth is only a phrase for modern times... back in the Mezozoic - sometimes referred to as the "Age of Reptiles", many birds had teeth. Longipteryx chaoyangensis is the subject of a new paper in the journal Current Biology. L. chaoyangensis lived during the early Cretaceous Period about 120 million years ago. Researchers at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, IL, found fossilized seed in the stomach of a specimen of L. chaoyangensis. This discovery calls into question the hypothesis that toothed birds ate only fish and insects.
For paleontologists who study animals that lived long ago, fossilized remains tell only part of the story of an animal's life. While a well-preserved skeleton can provide hints at what an ancient animal ate or how it moved, irrefutable proof of these behaviors is hard to come by. But sometimes, scientists luck out with extraordinary fossils that preserve something beyond the animal's body.
...
"Longipteryx is one of my favorite fossil birds, because it's just so weird— it has this long skull, and teeth only at the tip of its beak," says Jingmai O'Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles in the Field Museum's Neguanee Integrative Research Center and the study's lead author.
ESCONI will be holding the 2024 Mazon Creek Fossil Day on October 12th, 2024 from 10 AM to 3 PM at the Coal City Public Library. Please come out and bring your Mazon Creek fossils. There will displays of Mazon Creek fossils and knowledgeable people who can identify your fossils.
Coal City Public Library 85 N. Garfield St. Coal City, IL Main Meeting Room
Lecture on Mazon Creek Fossils 1 PM
Come on out for another great and informative day!
ESCONI hosted the Fall 2024 edition of the Braceville Field Trip over the weekend of September 7th and 8th. The primary focus of the event was searching for Mazon Creek fossils and concretions. The site, commonly referred to as "Worm Hill," is known for its variety of marine fossils, including worms, jellyfish, sea anemones, and clams, with marine worm fossils being particularly common.
The weather was perfect for both days of the event, with temperatures in the mid-70s and clear skies, completely free of rain. Conditions were ideal, allowing a full turnout of 50 participants each day. Familiar faces mingled with some new visitors, and notable attendees included Arjan Mann, Mike Donovan, and Naiomi Cookson from the Field Museum, as well as Alan Keith, who traveled from Texas. There were several generous contributions to the fossil dump from Andrew Young, Ralph Jewell, Marty Houdek, Elizabeth Gentry, Rich Holm, Alan Keith, Connor Puritz, and Phil Anderson.
Saturday's group selfie
The hill is looking about the same. Althought, it was much larger in the past. If you are curious about its history, have a look at Mazon Monday #30. The spoil pile is from a shaft mine operated through part of its history by the Braceville Coal Company. It was their No. 2 mine. They operated it from 1892 - 1900. It was the second most productive of their six mines, producing almost 1.8 million tons of coal. The mine covered about 249 acres. The company was targeting the Colchester coal seam, which sits at a depth of between 103 and 110 feet with a thickness of 3.5 feet.
From the look of the road outside the spoil pile, some of the collectors were very excited to get to the site.
After burning rubber in the road, here's the group of eager fossil hunters rushing to get to the hill...
Of course, we had the famous fossil dump... there were generous contributions from Andrew Young, Ralph Jewell, Marty Houdek, Elizabeth Gentry, Rich Holm, Alan Keith, Connor Puritz, and Phil Anderson. Thanks!
Discussions around the pile
Those orange buckets really glow in the sun!
Concretions!
Nice one, George!
Is that a new Estwing, Jeremy? What's in your hand? A frog?!? Is he helping you dig?
Is there a better way to spend Saturday night after a long day of hunting fossils?... Dinner at the Tully Monster Pub and Grill in Morris!
See you guys again in the spring!
Note: some of these photos came from Ralph Jewell, who has a great thread over on the Fossil Forum. Check it out! Other photos came from Andrew Young, Phil Anderson, Eileen Routson, Jody Gosain, Taleka Robinson, Chad Stevens and others. Thanks!
Melissa Lowery and Anthony Martin examine a dinosaur track. Image credit: Ruth Schowalter.
SciNews has a story about the discovery of dinosaur footprints in Australia. The footprints date back 120 million years, which corresponds with the early Cretaceous Period. At that time, Australia was still connected to Antarctica. The footprints were found in the Wonthaggi Formation south of Melbourne, Australia. They were made by a medium to large theropod and a small ornithopod.
“These numerous tracks are the best evidence yet that these former polar environments supported large carnivores,” said Emory University’s Professor Anthony Martin.
“The large theropods would likely have fed on prey such as smaller dinosaurs, fish and turtles.”
“The hip height of that theropod would have been about the same as the full height of a tall, modern-day human.”
“The Australian state of Victoria’s rocky coastal strata mark where the ancient supercontinent Gondwana began to break up around 100 million years ago, separating Australia from Antarctica.”
“The polar environment at that time was a rift valley with braided rivers.”
There's a new episode PBS Eons. This one is about the evolution of a flexible trunk in elephants.
Long-jawed proboscideans were doing pretty well for themselves. That is, until they were all rapidly replaced with proboscideans with long, flexible trunks instead: mammoths, mastodons, and our modern elephants.What suddenly made long jaws such a liability? Well it looks like we can thank a changing climate for the evolution of the elephant’s trunk.
This is the "Fossil Friday" post #230. 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!
Penn Dixie is on most fossil collectors' bucket lists. I experienced the "Digging With the Experts" event last year and had a great time. I would definitely recommend. You will find nice trilobites (enrolled and prone), horn corals, and brachiopods galore, along with the occasional rare cephalopods and crinoids. Trilobites can be found in groups, sometime with 7 on the same plate!
At last weekend's Braceville field trip, we got to talking to Tim Rogers, who was on his first Mazon Creek trip. He mentioned Penn Dixie and some of his finds. Well, he sent along a few photos and we just had to share them here. He has not one, but two amazing Greenops boothi and multiple Eldregeops rana (sometimes still referred to as Phacops rana).
Thanks for shaing, Tim! Hope to see you out there next year!
Greenops boothi
Eldregeops rana
A nice cruziana... a trilobite trackway
The before and after on the Dipleura head is amazing!
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/0b/ac/0bac35ee-13b5-44ac-b4af-3bd827018536/ring_when_found_close_up.jpeg)
