This is the "Fossil Friday" post #238. 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!
-----------------------------------------------------
Long time ESCONI member Ralph Jewell sent us images of a very nice Edestus heinrichi shark tooth he purchased at the 2023 MAPS Show in Springfield, IL. Edestus sharks are known from the Pennsylvanian Period. The genus was established by Joseph Leidy in 1856, when he described Edestus vorax. Edestus is one of the sharks known for its strange tooth whorl, which consisted of a singe row of teeth. Research suggests they didn't shed like modern sharks, instead they grew new teeth at the back of their mouth pushing older teeth to the tip of their jaws. Leidy is considered one of the founders of American vertebrate paleontology.
Edestus heinrichi was described in 1980 by John Strong Newberry and Amos Henry Worthen. Worthen was the second state geologist of Illinois and the first curator of the Illinois State Museum. The holotype was found in Illinois, but has been lost. We had an Edestus tooth not long ago in Fossil Friday #221.
Ralph's specimen is especially interesting for a few reasons. First, it's complete and unprepared. It includes both sides of the split shale. So many times you'll see a single prepared 3-D tooth mostly removed from the original shale. Notice the nice coloring and what seems to be a conchoidal fracture on the upper right of the positive half.
Lastly, those labels... they tell everything about where and when it was found. Anson Simpson found this tooth in April 1932 in the St. David Strip Mine in St. David, IL. St. David is southwest of Peoria in Fulton County. It's a small town, which had a population of 522 in the 2020 census. The tooth was found in shale associated with the Illinois #5 Springfield Coal, which is younger than the #2 Colchester Coal, but older than the #6 Herrin Coal. Ralph did a little research and found the coal mine was the actually called the Saint David Coal Mine 1 in 1932 after starting life as Big Creek Coal mine No. 2 of the Big Creek Coal Company from 1905-1920. See the Howdy from Havana, Illinois blog for details about the mine. That post dates to 2017. The author of the blog has an obvious love of trains and coal mines.
The Saint David , Illinois area has a long history of coal mines over a hundred and some years. Coal mines popped up, prospered for either a short period time but the luckier ones lasted a few decades. When I say luckier mines the ones who were loaded with coal. The smaller mines worked until they ran out or the mines became to unsafe afterwards they were abandoned. This county has alot of coal mines some of which i'll cover in my blog in the future. So we'll start this off covering some of the history of the Saint David Coal mine aka Big Creek Coal Mine.
The St. David Coal Mine was located north of the town of Saint David in section 16 of the township. It was north of the town and just north of My Aunt Edna's house which I once played there quite a few times as a kid unaware of the history just feet away. I'll post a picture later the trees in the background was where the mines were beyond that nearby. There was a CB&Q spur that came up here in the early 1910's. There is a street in Saint David that headed north and is a dead end n\called Burlington street which I assume was named because the spur came up in the exact area up to the mine. Towards the mainline it split off in both directions heading back onto the mine. The land is all private property so no chance of exploring anywhere near it and probably for good reason who knows if there is pits still back there or you can stumble into or over something so just as well. Okay blabber mouth here will shut her trap and let;s get back to the history of this mine and enough of my trying to be friendly chit chat. :)
The St. David coal mine in section 16 lasted into the 1940's by what I found so far. If I find more out I'll be sure to add later. It was Big Creek Coal mine No. 2 and the Big Creek Coal Company from 1905-1920. From 1920-1924 it was Big Creek Coal mine 22, operated by Big Creek Coal Company. In 1924 Saline County Coal Company took ownership of it naming it Saline County Coal Mine No. 22 and it ran from 1924 until 1928. After 1928 Truax Traer Coal Company took over and the mine name was changed to Saint David Coal Mine 1 which was a strip mine. It ran from 1929-1943.
Anson Simpson appears to have been a director of the Archaeology Section of the Peoria Acadamy of Science, Inc. Simpson was honored by the Illinois State Archaeology Society for his service in 1947.
As the article says, Dr. Charles D. Sneller was president of the Peoria Acadamy of Science, Inc. in 1932. Sneller was a medical doctor, who presented a paper titled "The Mucus Membran of the Nose" in 1936. You just have to love the reference to Devonian Period fish!
Sneller was a fossil collector who ran ads in Hobbies magazine to buy "Fossils and Shells". Here's an ad from March 1931.
The level of documention about this fossil is incredible! We should all take the time to document our finds. When winter arrives and collecting becomes difficult, that's a great time to label our fossils properly.
Ralph, thanks for sharing this interesting fossil and its informative label!
