Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Throwback Thursday #238: ESCONI 10th Anniversary Pictures #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday #anniversary #10thanniversary

This is Throwback Thursday #238.  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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Here are some pictures from the ESCONI 10th Anniversary celebration in 1957.

ESCONI Board at Pugh's - G. Law, O. Fether, R. Bish, M. Cornwell, V. Montgomery - 1959

ESCONI Board at Pugh's - J. Schnitzlein, Darrows, H. Knight, Hoff, Pugh - 1959

Max Hillmer, Carl Hoffman, Dorothy Ade, Jay Farr

ESCONI 10th Anniversary 11-13-1959

ESCONI 10th Anniversary 11-13-1959

ESCONI 10th Anniversary - Bill Allaway 11-13-1959

ESCONI 10th Anniversary - John Ade_11-13-1959

ESCONI 10th Anniversary - Warze & George Darrow 11-13-1959

ESCONI 10th Anniversary - Tom Wheatley 11-13-1959

ESCONI 10th Anniversary - Mrs Samford Gates, et al 11-13-1959

ESCONI 10th Anniversary Char. Montgomery, Joe Bloom 11-13-1959

ESCONI 10th Anniversary - Hazel Bonow & cake 11-13-1959

 

ESCONI November 2024 Mineralogy Study Group Meeting has been cancelled!

The Mineralogy Study Group meeting, which was scheduled for Saturday, November 2, 2024, has been canceled.

We are in the process of moving all the material from the warehouse to a new site. Due to the nature of this move, and the manpower and time required, we are making it our main focus.

Thank you for your understanding. We apologize for any inconvenience. Another meeting will be scheduled at a later date.

 

PhD student finds lost city in Mexico jungle by accident #archaeology #mexico #maya

Evidence of the ruins were found by a plane using laser remote sensing to map beneath the jungle canopy

The BBC has a story about the accidental discovery of a huge Maya city.  Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student at Tulane university in the US, came across a laser survey by a Mexican organisation for environmental monitoring and noticed something interesting... a lost city deep in the jungle of the Mexican state of Campeche.  The cuty, referred to as Valeriana, was home to maybe 30-50,000 people at its peak from 750 to 850 AD.  The research is published in the academic journal Antiquity.

Valeriana has the “hallmarks of a capital city” and was second only in density of buildings to the spectacular Calakmul site, around 100km away (62 miles).

It is “hidden in plain sight”, the archaeologists say, as it is just 15 minutes hike from a major road near Xpujil where mostly Maya people now live.

There are no known pictures of the lost city because “no-one has ever been there”, the researchers say, although local people may have suspected there were ruins under the mounds of earth.

The city, which was about 16.6 sq km, had two major centres with large buildings around 2km (1.2 miles) apart, linked by dense houses and causeways.

Greenland's Mineral Frontier - Thomas Hale #minerals #greenland #gold #mines #mining

Interesting presentation about the mineral resources of Greenland by Thomas Hale of the University of Delaware, where he is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences.  Thomas is also an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). 

Melting ice in Greenland is exposing the country’s critical mineral resources, including rare earth elements, gold, rubies, graphite, fluorescent minerals and more. Extractive companies, governments, and billionaires are all eyeing this largely under-exploited resource potential. This presentation covers three core sections.

First, the presentation provides a review of South Greenland's rich mineral resources and its most famous deposits, including the social, environmental, and political challenges around extraction. Greenland has gained a lot of attention from the international community for its mineral wealth, but there are many challenges facing the country when it comes to achieving a sustainable mining economy.

Second, the presentation provides a historical overview of the Ivittuut Cryolite Mine (formerly Ivigtut), still considered to be the most famous and only successful long-term mining operation in the country’s history.

Finally, there is a short update on key policy developments, mining projects, and collecting literature for those interested in the development prospects of Greenland’s extractive sector.

Mazon Monday #240: Sphenopteris spinosa #fossils #paleontology #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #pennsylvanian

This is Mazon Monday post #240.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Sphenopteris is a genus of seed ferns.  Seed ferns, Pteridospermatphyta, as a group have a geologic range which spanned from the late Devonian to the late Cretaceous, although a few species seem to have survivied into the Eocene.  Sphenopteris was a part of the forest understory.

Sphenopteris spinosa was described by Heinrich Göppert in 1841.  Göppert (1800 - 1884) was a German botanist and paleontologist.  He was a professor of botany and the curator of the botanical gardens in Breslau.  In the 1840s, he demostrated the existence of plant cells in microscopic preparations of coal, which settled the long running debate as to the origin of coal.  At that time, his private collection of specimens of fossil flora was considered the finest in the world.

George and Sydne Langford included Sphenopteris spinosa in their Christmas card of 1939. It's the fossil on the right. Langford classified S. spinosa as Diplothmema zobelli, which is included in his first book "The Wilmington coal flora from a Pennsylvanian deposit in Will County, Illinois", published in 1958.

Jack Wittry describes Sphenopteris spinosa on page 149 in "A Comprehesive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek".

Sphenopteris spinosa Göppert, 1841

1841. Sphenopteris spinosa Göppert: p. 70, pl. 12
1866. Hymenophyllites spinosus Göppert; Lesquereux: p. 436, pl. 34, fig. 3
1884. Sphenopteris solida Lesquereux: p. 769, pl. 101, fig. 3
1923. Sphenopteris spinosa Göppert; Kidston: p. 85, pl. 14, fig. 4
1925. Palmatopteris furcata (non Brongniart) Potonié; Noé: pl. 13, fig. 1 (re-figured here as Fig. 1)
1958. Sphenopteris spinaeformis (non Kidston); Langford: p. 275, fig. 501
1963. Diplothmema. Langford: p. 271, figs. 913-915
1969. Sphenopteris cf. spinaeformis (non Kidston); Darrah: p. 157, pl. 25, fig. 2
1979. Sphenopteris spinaeformis (non Kidston); Janssen: p. 111, fig. 92

DESCRIPTION: The pinnae are alternate, touch each other, are broadly lanceolate, and gradually taper to a sharp, spine-like terminal point that is sometimes accompanied by a smaller lateral spine (see Fig. 2 inset), though these features are often buried in the matrix or missing. The rachis of the penultimate and ultimate pinnae are heavy and winged. The pinnules are highly variable along the rachis. Near the pinna base (see Fig. 3), they are nearly triangular, alternate, oblique, decurrent with a wide footstalk, and deeply divided. All pinnules are truncate or cuneate and expanded near the apex where they terminate in an assortment of rounded lobes. The upper pinnules (see Figs. 1, 2) become more narrowed with a wide, decurrent base and smaller, rounded lobes. The venation is distant and indistinct, consisting of a decurrent midvein that forks near the base and then divides again, producing a single vein for every lobe. These veins terminate at their apices. Fertile structures have not been described.

REMARKS: Sphenopteris spinosa is uncommon. The Mazon Creek examples of this taxon, like those in other localities, are often badly broken because of their delicate tissue. They often lack detail and are missing pinnules; those remaining are mostly broken or ragged.

Specimens

Field Museum PP 27660

Field Museum PP 58162

Field Museum PP 58178

 

Who’s the Dodo Now? A Famously Extinct Bird, Reconsidered. #birds #history #extinction #dodo #Mauritius

The only known flesh and bone specimen remaining of the dodo, on display at Oxford University.Credit...Oxford University Museum of Natural History

The New York Times has an interesting article about the Dodo. The Dodo, Raphus cucullatus, was a flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius.  It was about the size of a male turkey. The Dodo has long been seen as and inept animal that slid into extinction because it was too stupid to survive. It went extinct in the 1700s due to sailors finding them delicious and easy to catch when they stopped over in Mauritius.  Now, a paper in the Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society by Neil Gostling, a paleobiologist at the University of Southampton in England, sets the record straight.  The Dodo was not who you think it was...

The new study reconfirmed that the dodo and the solitaire were columbids, members of the pigeon and dove family prized for their singular intelligence — an attribute that runs counter to the notion that the dodo was destined to die out because it was too stupid to survive. The researchers also concluded that there was just a single species of dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria). They created a new family group name, Raphina subtribus nova, to unite the two birds.

Leon Claessens, a paleontologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who is not connected to the study, said the dodo was one of a select group of animals that had been named, classified and described often — probably too often. “The authors of the new paper make a valiant effort to hack through the nomenclatural thicket in which the dodo and the solitaire are hidden,” he said.

Genetic testing suggests that around 25 million years ago the two species shared a common Southeast Asian ancestor, which diverged about 12 million years ago into what became the dodo and the solitaire. Dr. Hume said that the ancestral species, which could fly, island-hopped along the emergent Mascarene Plateau, an undersea archipelago that extends about 1,200 miles, from the Seychelles in the north to Réunion in the south. The dodos evolved on Mauritius, which arose through volcanic activity some eight million years ago, and the solitaire stopped on Rodrigues, which popped up some 6.5 million years later.

Both birds were well adapted to their isolated habitats. The dodo’s large bill had a hooked tip that appears to have been its only real defense. (One 17th-century seaman called the dodo’s beak its “war weapon.”) Likewise, the clublike bone growths on the end of each solitaire wing were presumably used against other solitaires in turf wars. Absent mammalian predators, the dodo and solitaire, both fruit eaters, gradually began to fly less and walk more. In these resource-rich subtropical settings, their size increased so drastically that they lost their ability to fly.

 

PBS Eons: The Dinosaurs That Evolution Forgot #dinosaurs #fossils #paleontology #appalachia #northamerica

PBS has a new episode.  This one is about the dinosaurs of the east coast of North America.  North America was divided into two land masses by the Western Interior Seaway at the end of the Cretaceous about 100 to 66 million years ago.  The east coast landmass is called Appalachia. 

Where are all the east coast dinosaurs? Why don’t we find famous species like Triceratops in Central Park? Turns out, evolution and geology came together to make the east coast into an ancient lost world of weird dinosaurs.

Fossil Friday #236: Cyathocarpus arborea from the Mazon Creek River #fossils #paleontology #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #pennsylvanian #fern

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #236.  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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We looked at Cyathocarpus arborea just a few weeks ago in Mazon Monday #236.  Now, it only seems fitting that we'd feature a sweet specimen for Fossil Friday #236.  It was originally named Filicites arborescens by Ernst Freiedrich, Freiherr von Schlotheim in 1820.

This beautiful specimen was recently found by ESCONI member George Witaszek in the Mazon River.  Thanks for sharing, George!

Throwback Thursday #237: Bruce Stinchcomb, Route 66, and Mazon Creek #TBT #history #ThrowbackThursday #MazonCreek #Route66 #US66 #braidwood.

This is Throwback Thursday #237.  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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US Route 66 has been termed the "Mother Road" by some as it was one of the original highways in the United States.  It was commissioned on November 11, 1926 and ran from Chicago, IL to Los Angeles, CA, via Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.  Road signs were erected the following year.  One of the alignments of Route 66 ran right through the heart of what was the Northern Illinois Coal Corporation's (NICC) Pit 3.  We did a post about Piano Hill a few years ago (see Throwback Thursday #127).

At last weekend's 2024 MAPS Show, I was reminded of Bruce Stinchcomb when part of his collection was made available for sale. Bruce was a geologist and educator who taught at St. Louis Community College for 36 years. Sadly, he passed away on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, at the age of 85. His contributions to science and paleontology will long be remembered. The following is an excerpt from his obituary.

Dr. Bruce L. Stinchcomb

85, passed peacefully at home, Wednesday July 12, 2023.  On Monday, two days before, he was doing what he loved; discovering fossils with friends and colleagues at Crowley’s Ridge. He leaves behind his daughter, Beth Stinchcomb; two nephews, Frank and Lou Wachowe, Teresa & Nick Wachowe, and many friends. He earned a PhD in earth science from the Missouri University of Science and Technology in 1978, and received his MA in geology from Washington University in 1966. A professor at St. Louis Community College for 36 years; he retired in 2005. His contributions to science and paleontology will forever be recognized. Mentor and Teacher; he was instrumental in the discovery, excavation & preservation of our Missouri dinosaur: Parrosaurus missouriensis, currently on display at The Chicago Museum of Natural History.

Bruce did a small video of the geology of Route 66. The segment of the video about Mazon Creek and Braidwood is available on Youtube.  It's nteresting that he mentions the MAPS fossil shows in the video.

Route 66 crossed the Illinois Basin in the state of Illinois. It cut right through an extensive coal strip mine area what is and was the source of large numbers of fossils and known as the Mazon Creek (and Essex) fossil beds. Shown here are a variety of fossil plants and animals which came from this area and are representative of it. Many of these were collected in the 1950's and 60's when collecting of these fossils was especially productive.

The largest arthropod to ever live finally has a head #fossils #paleontology #arthropod #millipede #carboniferous #MazonCreek

This 3-D reconstruction of a fossilized juvenile Arthropleura reveals details of the millipede’s head (green), such as its mouthparts and antennae. Lhéritier et al/Science Advances 2024

Science News is reporting that the head of Arthropleura has finally been found!  Whether it's the largest arthropod that ever lived is debatable, but Arthropleura was a very large millipede that lived during the Carboniferous Period some 300+ million years ago.  Oh, by the way, there is fossil evidence of these giants living in Illinois as part of the Mazon Creek biota.

Two newly discovered fossils are helping scientists wrap their heads around the anatomy of the largest arthropod of all time — a millipede that grew longer than a king-sized bed and lived between 346 million and 290 million years ago.

Arthropleura was discovered in 1854, but no one had ever managed to find a fossil that included a head. “It was more than 100 years since we start trying to find a head. And now we finally have one,” says Mickaël Lhéritier, a paleontologist at Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 in France.

New Species of Ichthyosaur Identified from Colombian Fossils #fossils #paleontology #ichthyosaur #columbia #cretaceous

A pair of Platypterigius sp. Image credit: Dmitry Bogdanov / CC BY 3.0.

SciNews has a post about a new species of ichthyosaur from Columbia. Platypterygius elsuntuoso, an ichthyosaur, lived about 125 million years ago during the early Cretaceous Period.  Researchers from the Fundación Colombiana de Geobiología collected the fossil remains of a young adult in 1999.

The specimen consists of an almost complete skull, some axial elements including the atlasaxis and a few cervical vertebrae, the left coracoid, and a few phalanges.

“The specimen was found in a concretion in La Cabrera hill, northwest of Villa de Leiva (Boyacá, Colombia) where the Arcillolitas abigarradas Member of the Paja Formation outcrops,” the paleontologists said.

“Its exact geographic provenance is unknown, so it was not possible to determine its precise stratigraphic position.”

Mazon Monday #239: Mazon Creek Fossil Day Report #fossils #paleontology #MazonMonday #MazonCreek

This is Mazon Monday post #239.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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The 2024 ESCONI Mazon Creek Fossil Day was held on October 12th at the Coal City Library.  It proved to be a huge success, attracting more than 100 visitors throughout the day. Many attendees brought fossils for identification, including shark egg cases, well-preserved insects, and an impressive spider fossil. Experts such as Jack Wittry, Mike Donovan, Paul Mayer, Andrew Young, and others were on hand to assist with identifications.

There were two presentations during the event. Mike Donovan from the Field Museum discussed his latest research, which includes 3-D imaging, herbivore coprolites, and insect-plant interactions. Rich Holm gave a presentation, which offered a look into the history of Mazon Creek fossil collecting.

Jack Wittry signed a few of his books for attendees.

There were many smiles on both familiar and new faces as we made some new friends.

Marty Houdek, Jeremy Zimmerman, Rich Holm, and the Field Museum provided fossil specimens for display.

And... of course, we took a selfie at the end of the day...

ESCONI November 2024 Mineralogy Study Group Meeting #minerals #fluorescent #fluorescentminerals #calcite

Yooperite from Lake Superior

The next meeting of the Mineralogy Study Group will be om November 2, 2024 starting at 7:30 PM I TEC 1038B. The program will be “Fluorescent Minerals” by Dave Carlson. The presentation will cover fluorescence, phosphorescence, tenebrescence and triboluminescence, fluorescent minerals and where they can be found, and modern sources of UV light. If you have fluorescent minerals or a portable UV light source, please bring them to the meeting for everyone to see.

Here's a website about fluorescent minerals.

 

PBS Eons: Could You Survive The Cambrian Explosion? #fossils #paleontology #cambrianexplosion #evolution #cambrian

There's a new episode of PBS Eons.  This one discusses whether you could survive in the Cambrian Period, some 500 million years ago.  What would you eat?  Could you breathe?

In the ocean, the Cambrian Period was one of startling evolutionary innovations, but on land, it was barren, with no vegetation of any kind. In this strange world before plants made their way onto land…could you survive?

Fossil Friday #235: Alethopteris serlii from the Field Museum #fossils #paleontology #MazonCreek #FossilFriday #seedfern #pennsylvanian

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #235.  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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For this week's fossil, we have a very large and gorgeous Alethopteris serlii.  This seed fern was on display at the recent ESCONI Mazon Creek Fossil Day in Coal City on October 12th, 2024.  This specimen is part of the Paleobotany Collection at the Field Museum. 

I hope you made it out to see this stunning fossil and the others brought by Mike Donovan of the Field Museum.  He had a display of absolutely beautiful Mazon Creek plant fossils.  Thanks, Mike!

Throwback Thursday #236: Only a Rock #history #TBT #ThrowbackThursday #rocks

This is Throwback Thursday #236.  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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"Only a Rock" is a poem that appeared in the July 1964 edition of the ESCONI newsletter.  The poem was written by Alice French of the Flint Rock & Gem Club in Clio, Michigan, which is near Flint.  It's good to see that the Flint Rock & Gem Club is alive and well as they just had their annual show in September 2024.

ONLY A ROCK by Alice French

It's only a rock, they said to me
When I picked it up from the shore.
But it's pretty, just look at the color,
And there are many more.

It was washed so clean and smooth,
And its pattern so bright and clear,
I marveled at its beauty,
But I guess they thought me queer.

Perhaps it wasn't a precious gem
To be worn upon one's hand,
But it looked as lovely lying there
In its bed upon the sand.

I took it up to the cottage
And put it on the shelf
Now it's a conversation piece
That has gained honor for itself.

- from Flint Rock & Gem Club

Happy National Fossil Day - 2024! #fossils #paleontology

Many places are holding special events.  The Field Museum has a special day and it's a free admission day!  Come on out!

Join us for National Fossil Day, an annual celebration initiated by the National Park Service, designed to highlight the value of paleontology and the importance of preserving fossils for future generations. Meet scientists, see rarely displayed items from our collections, and take part in hands-on activities, all while spending the day exploring our world famous fossils including SUE the T. rex and the Chicago Archaeopteryx!

The Field Museum is free on Wednesdays for Illinois Residents.

 

Reminder: MAPS EXPO 2024 - October 18th-20th, 2024 in Springfield, IL #fossils #paleontology #show #maps #midamericanpaleo

EXPO 2024

October 18-20, 2024

Hours: 9am-5pm Fri, 8am-5pm Sat, 8am-3pm Sun

The Orr Building on the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, IL.

The keynote topic for EXPO 2024 is The Carboniferous Period.

Keynote Speaker: Joe Devera - "Late Mississippian Vertebrate Fossils from the Buncimbe Red Bed, Southern Illinois"

EXPO Info 2024 Newsletter

Mazon Monday #238: Alethopteris lesquereuxii #fossils #paleontology #MazonCreek #MazonMonday #seedfern #carboniferous #pennsylvanian

This is Mazon Monday post #238.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Alethopteris lesquereuxii was originally named Callipteridium mansfieldi by Leo Lesquereux in 1879.  C. mansfieldi was named for the Hon. Ira Franklin Mansfield, who was a politician and an extensive owner of coal mining interest in the middle to late 1800s in the area of Beaver County, Pennsylvania.  Mansfield assembled a significant collection of euryperids from the Darlington coal bed.  In the 1880s, his his collection was donated to Penn State.  He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1878.

C. mansfieldi was reclassified as Alethopteris lesquereuxii in 1968 by Richard H. Wagner along with Alethopteris gibsoni.

George Langford Sr. referred to it as  Alethopteris grandini.

Alethopteris lesquereuxii can be found on page 179 and 180 in Jack Wittry's "A Comprehesive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek".

Alethopteris lesquereuxii var. lesquereuxii Wagner, 1968

1879-80. Callipteridium mansfieldi Lesquereux: p. 166, pl. 27, fig. 2
1938. Alethopteris friedeli (non Bertrand); Bell: p. 68 in part, pl. 62, fig. 2; non fig. 3, 4 = Alethopteris gibsonii; ?pl. 63
1958 Alethopteris grandini (non Brongniart); Langford: p. 247, fig. 444
1968 Alethopteris lesquereuxi var. lesquereuxi Wagner: p. 89, pls. 30-35, figs. 85-100

DESCRIPTION: The ultimate pinnae are linear-lanceolate with pinnules becoming fused and oblique toward their apices. The rachis is heavy and marked by longitudinal striae. The pinnules rise at nearly a right angle or are slightly oblique. They are distant and narrowly confluent at their bases, where they may appear to be slightly constricted. The pinnules are nearly triangular near the pinna apex and more linear or convex toward the pinna base, where they gradually taper into an obtuse apex and have a typical aspect ratio of 3.5 times longer than wide. The pinnules appear inflated due to their thick lamina. The venation consists of a straight, non-decurrent midvein, which is centered in the pinnule; it may appear rather broad, though more commonly somewhat narrow and buried in the thick lamina. The lateral veins are well marked, oblique, straight, fork once generally near the midvein, and occasionally, a second time. Lateral veins on the basiscopic side rise from the midvein at a slightly more oblique angle than those on the acroscopic side (see Fig. 4). Typically, there are about 30 veins per centimeter at the margin. The pinnules have less-densely packed lateral veins at the pinna apex than near the base.

REMARKS: Alethopteris lesquereuxii is uncommon. This taxon is easily mistaken for Alethopteris gibsonii. The pinnules of A. gibsonii are narrower and have a broader midvein than A. lesquereuxii. The lateral veins are all clearly perpendicular in A. gibsonii, in contrast with the oblique and asymmetric veins of A. lesquereuxii.

Specimens

Field Museum specimens from Wittry's "A Comprehesive Guide to the Fossil Flora of Mazon Creek"

From the 2019 ESCONI show

ESCONI member

From McDonald's Farm in Naperville

Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller review – a marvel of narrative non fiction #fossils #fish #paleontology #cladistics

The Guardian has a review of one of my favorite books of the last few years.  Lulu Miller's "Why Fish Don't Exist" is about a few thing all woven together.  It's first a biography of David Starr Jordan, who was the founding president of Stanford University.  He was a prodiguous ichthyologist whose team classified around a fifth of all the fish known today.  Add in the love story, a philosophical discussion of life (what is a fish?!?), a murder mystery at the end, and you have a book that is hard to put down!

Miller, an American science journalist, first latched on to Jordan’s story while in the throes of heartbreak, shame and annihilating depression, seeing him as an exemplar of perseverance against the odds. In 1883, a fewyears into his fish-collecting career, a bolt of lightning set fire to Jordan’s laboratory, incinerating every specimen and document. Undeterred, he began all over again, only for the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 to reduce his life’s work to a ruin of broken glass, spilt ethanol, rotting flesh and suddenly useless name tags. Jordan pressed on. Whenever he could identify a fish from memory, he sewed a tag into its flesh, insisting that no matter how great the visiting catastrophe, “it is the will of man that shapes the facts”. He epitomised what HG Wells at the time identified as America’s invincible, “ultra-human” faith in its own resilience. Raised by an atheist biochemistwho told her life was chaos without purpose, Miller was entranced by this “wonderful bastard” who believed he could catch the world in a net and force it to make sense.

If you prefer audio, NPR did a great 8 minute interview with Lulu back in 2020.

Scientist David Starr Jordan had spent his career identifying new species of fish.

He carefully stored and tagged thousands of them in glass jars. Then the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 hit — leaving his life's work in pieces on the floor.