Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Mazon Monday #61: Video for May Paleontology Meeting - "A Historical Perspective on Collecting Mazon Creek and Pit 11" by Peter Kruty #MazonMonday #fossils #history #Illinois #paleontology

This is Mazon Monday post #61.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com.

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We are very excited to post the video of Peter Kruty's presentation for the May 2021 Paleontology Meeting. The title of his talk was "A historical Perspective on Collecting Mazon Creek and Pit 11". It was a very interesting presentation which was sure to bring back memories for long-time Mazon Creek collectors and instill a deep longing and heartfelt regret for those that couldn't or didn't participate in the glory years of the 1950's to the early 1980's.

Peter showed many photos of he and his family collecting at three different historic Mazon Creek localities. The first was a stretch of the Mazon River just east of Morris, which passes between the Kodat and Bensen farms. This was the original Mazon Creek collecting spot, active all the way back to the 1850's. The locality was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997.

Secondly, the Greer School sat on what was Peabody Coal's Pit #1 and was known for incredible plant fossils. The school trained construction workers to drive heavy equipment. The site now hosts Cinder Ridge Golf Course in Wilmington, IL. The last site was Peabody Coal's Pit #11, which is now a State Park - Mazonia. The public is still allowed to collect in the park, however
it is overgrown with plants and concretions can be very difficult to find.

At the end of his presentation, Peter showed some stunning fossil specimens, including a Tully Monster, a very nice shrimp, some gorgeous ferns, and an incredible Elonichthys fish, which
was featured in Fossil Friday #46.

Peter and his brother Paul donated parts of his father's fossil collection to ESCONI earlier this year. His father, Sam Kruty, a Chemical Engineer by profession, was an enthusiastic fossil collector, who contributed specimens to the Field Museum and the Mazon Creek Project. He was generous with his fossils using them to educate many that he met. Additionally, he was co-author of three chapters of the Richardson's Guide to the Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek.

Thanks again, Peter and Paul!

 

Video: ESCONI March 2021 General Meeting - "The Big Hill Lagerstätte” #fossil #paleontology #Michigan #Ordovician #arthropod

The ESCONI March 2021 General Meeting is on March 12, 2021 at 8:00.  The program will be presented via Zoom by Dr. James Lamsdell of West Virginia University. Dr. Lamsdell studies Paleozoic arthropods such as eurypterids and xiphosurans (horseshoe crabs and their relatives). He recently published on the fauna of the Ordovician “Big Hill” Lagerstatte in Upper Michigan.  We posted about this locality and the paper back in December 2020.

The University of Michigan has an interesting post about a new Lagerstatte, which was discovered in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan back in 2013.  This fossil deposit dates to the Silurian Period about 430 million years ago.  Over 40 species of animals have been discovered at the locality, including soft bodied animals like Jellyfish. Jellyfish are exceedingly rare in the fossil record.  Another animal found there is a strange arthropod called chasmataspids, which are related to sea scorpions.  The Youtube video provides a good explanation of the site.

The fossil collection adventures began in the fall of 2013 and the team started finding many fossils that they thought were eurypterids - sea scorpions - but they turned out to be an even stranger group of arthropods called the chasmataspids.The Big Hill fauna completely changed our understanding of the chasmataspids, documenting large variation in size and species and the first complete specimens. Previously, there had only been fragmented fossils found. However, the Big Hill fauna added 50 complete specimens! So, what were all of these chasmataspids doing in Michigan ~430 million years ago? Well, just like other arthropods, chasmataspids molted or shed their exoskeleton as they grew. This is a very difficult process, as it leaves the animal very vulnerable. Dr. James Lamsdell of West Virginia University thinks that these animals were coming to the shallow seas of Michigan to molt in a more protected lagoonal environment.

Why are these strange arthropods so important? These creatures are related to spiders, mites, and horseshoe crabs - things we know and can find on Earth today. The evolutionary histories  of these groups are less well understood. When did they make the transition out of the sea? Where and when did the groups we see today originate in the arthropod tree of life? The Big Hill fauna helps paleontologists better understand many of these questions.

Jellyfish were the other really important find at this location - the number of fossil sites containing jellyfish are low. Jellyfish contain no hard parts, so their ability to fossilize is very slim. Over 100 fossil jellyfish have been found in the Big Hill fauna, which is an unprecedented number for a fossil deposit.

His lab website can be found at: http://jameslamsdell.com/.

Here’s a link to a short YouTube video about Big Hill.

Video: ESCONI February 2021 General Meeting - "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 - "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 - "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: 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: 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.

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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!