Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Video: ESCONI February 2021 General Meeting - February 12th, 2021 at 8:00 PM - "Assessing the Early Mars Hydroclimate Using Paleolake Geometries” #mars #space #geology #astronomy #paleontology

 

Did rainfall and snowmelt fill rivers and lakes on Mars? GETTY

Our February 2021 speaker via Zoom will be Dr. Gaia Stucky de Quay from the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. The topic of her talk will be evidence for water and its effect on the geomorphology of early Mars. Title: “Assessing the Early Mars Hydroclimate Using Paleolake Geometries".  She had a recent paper published in the August 2020 edition of Geology called "Global precipitation and aridity constraints from paleolakes on early Mars".  Forbes did an article on that paper in which she is quoted.

Perseverance will land in Jezero crater, home to one of the open lake beds used in the study. Data collected by the rover will help determine how much water was on Mars and whether there are signs of ancient life.

This matters because we know Mars was covered with water. “It had lots of rain or snowmelt to fill those channels and lakes,” said lead author Gaia Stucky de Quay, a postdoctoral fellow at UT's Jackson School of Geosciences. “Now it's completely dry. We’re trying to understand how much water was there and where did it all go.”

The study’s conclusions are pretty loose; researchers using satellite images and topography found that rainfall must have been between a minimum of 13 feet/4 meters and a whopping 520 feet/159 meters in a single episode to fill the lakes.

That’s a large range, but it’s a start.

Here's a link to her page at UT: https://www.jsg.utexas.edu/gaia-stucky/

 

Video: ESCONI December 2020 General Meeting - December 4th, 2020 at 8:00 PM via Zoom - "What Genetics Tells Us About the Peopling of the Americas” #archaeology #genetics #Americas #NativeAmericans

 

The title for our Dec 4th program is "What Genetics Tells Us About the Peopling of the Americas” by Dr. Jennifer Raff, of the University of Kansas.  Dr. Raff's  research includes ancient DNA, anthropological genetics, human evolution and population history, migration, bioarchaeology, and scientific literacy.

You can find more about her on her page at KU.  https://anthropology.ku.edu/jennifer-raff

 

Video: ESCONI October 2020 General Meeting - October 9th, 2020 at 8:00 PM via Zoom - "The Blue Forest of Ancient Lake Gosiute” #fossils #paleontology #PetrifiedWood #chalcedony

 

At the October 2020 General Meeting, we had Mike Viney speak about the petrified wood of the Blue Forest in Wyoming.  The Zoom meeting video has been processed and is now available for viewing.  After the presentation, Mike sent a pdf with many of his slides (RBlueForestOfAncientLakeGosiute).

Mike is a Teacher in Residence at Colorado State University and a long-time collector and researcher into petrified wood. The title of his talk was "The Blue Forest of Ancient Lake Gosiute: Sweetwater County, Wyoming". The Blue Forest is a famous source of petrified wood known for its blue chalcedony. Lake Gosiute was one of the lakes in the Green River region during the Eocene.

Here's a link to Mike’s web page called "The Virtual Petrified Wood Museum" http://petrifiedwoodmuseum.org/

 

Video for ESCONI General Meeting, September 2020 - "Carboniferous Fossils Reveal How Fishes Evolve, and How They Don’t" #fossils #MazonCreek #fish #Carboniferous

"Carboniferous Fossils Reveal How Fishes Evolve, and How They Don’t” The speaker at our September 11th, 2020 general meeting was Dr. Lauren Sallan from the University of Pennsylvania. Her presentation was done via Zoom and started at 8:00 PM. Dr. Sallan received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2012. She was a co-author of the 2017 article that determined that the Tully Monster was not a vertebrate. She also works on Paleozoic ray-finned fishes and sharks.

Here's a link to her lab webpage, which includes links to her TED Talks: http://www.laurensallan.com/

 

Video for the ESCONI General Meeting, June 2020 - "Dino-Sores: Injury and Behavior in Cretaceous Dinosaurs" #dinosaurs #cretaceous #paleontology

 

We are pleased to present to you the video of our first zoom general meeting. It was held on June 12th, 2020. We had a remote speaker. He was Dr. Joe Peterson from the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh. Joe earned a BS Geology at SIU-C and an MS/PhD Geology from NIU. Since, then, he worked and volunteered at Burpee for many years. The title of his program is “Dino-Sores: Injury and Behavior in Cretaceous Dinosaurs”.

 

Mazon Monday #26: Braceville Field Trip Report #fossils #MazonCreek

This is Mazon Monday post #26.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com.

-----------------------------------------------------

The weather could not have been better for the annual Fall trip to Braceville, IL for Mazon Creek concretions this past weekend.  For both days, we had lows in the 50s and highs around 70 degrees.  There were 51 participants on Saturday and 42 on Sunday, with 9 of those on Sunday from the Kalamazoo Geological and Mineral Society (KGMS).  Thanks for joining us!

We had several donations of fossils.  Most notable was the donation from Ralph Jewell, Thanks!  He donated several buckets of concretions, Mississippian fossils, Ordovician fossils, Pliocene fossils, and some fossils from Morocco.  Hopefully, people won't be too confused with their findings!  Everyone went home with something... be it finds from the spoil pile or the donated fossils.

There is a great field trip report by Ralph Jewell on the Fossil Forum.  If you aren't a member over there, you are really missing out on some great information and discussions.  Sign up... it's free!  You will learn more than you ever imagined about fossils and their place in the natural world!

Here are a couple videos of the distribution of donated material on Saturday.

Sunday.

Here is a photo of the hill... it's shrunk since my first visit in 2004.

A view from the top

Various photos from the day

ESCONI Field Trip Report - Braceville Fall 2019, #fossils #MazonCreek

The Fall 2019 trip to Braceville was on September 14th and 15th this year.  The weather was great on Saturday, maybe a little hot for digging.   On Sunday, the day started out wet, with a steady down pour in early morning, but a few hardy souls went in right from the beginning!  It was two good days of fossil collecting, renewing old friendships, and making some new friends.  It may take a little while with the freeze/thaw preparation, but hopefully, we'll all come away with some awesome new fossils for our collections!

With all the rain we have had this year, the path got pretty overgrown this year.

There were some wet areas and they really turned to mud on Sunday.  Here is a little video summary of the trip.

A lunch time selfie...

We did the customary dump of fossils on both Saturday and Sunday.

 

There was a special visitor on Saturday...  A caterpillar from an Imperial Moth was found.

Here are various pictures from the 2 days of fossil fun!