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Mazon Monday #339: Braceville Fall 2026 Field Trip Report
Read more: Mazon Monday #339: Braceville Fall 2026 Field Trip ReportAt the end of August, ESCONI held our annual Fall field trip to the Braceville Spoil Pile, known as “Worm Hill.” It was a huge success. The weather cooperated for the most part. Saturday, August 29th was a beautiful day, with no rain and highs in the mid-70’s. Unfortunately, Saturday, August 30th started out with rain, but that slowed and stopped by about 10 AM. The ground soaked up most of the water and some of the shale was softened for our ready picks and shovels.
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A Nearly 200-Year-Old Museum Known for Its T. Rex Faces Extinction
Read more: A Nearly 200-Year-Old Museum Known for Its T. Rex Faces ExtinctionThe New York Times has a piece about the plight of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The institution first opened its door in 1828… nearly 200 years ago. It is the oldest natural history museum in the US. Due to financial difficulties since the Covid-19 pandemic, it is being forced to close at the end of September. At the end of September, the facility known for its Dinosaur Hall and its extensive collection of fossils and other specimens will permanently close, a casualty of struggling attendance and rising costs, the academy and the university said in a joint message on Tuesday. The message…
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PBS Eons: What Drove Life Into The Trees?
Read more: PBS Eons: What Drove Life Into The Trees?There’s a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about the evolution of arboreal living. Watch Eons: Life and Death on Pangea on the free PBS App: https://to.pbs.org/EonsApp or on the web here: https://pbs.org/eons ← use this link if you are outside of the U.S. How and when did tetrapods move into the trees? And why? Turns out, the story of climbing may have less to do with trees and more to do with their leaves.
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Fossil Friday #333: Crossotheca sagittata plate
Read more: Fossil Friday #333: Crossotheca sagittata plateToday, we have a largish plate of Crossotheca sagittata. Crossotheca sagittata is the fertile form of Pecopteris fontainei (see Mazon Monday #129). Remember, paleobotany specifies separate species for different plant parts, which is why we have two names for the same plant. This concept is known as form genera.
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Throwback Thursday #333: Looking Back At ESCONI for September 2026
Read more: Throwback Thursday #333: Looking Back At ESCONI for September 2026ESCONI highlights from 25, 50, and 70 years ago
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ESCONI Events for September 2026
Read more: ESCONI Events for September 2026Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings! Friday, September 11th General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom. Franklin Duffy, PhD student and research affiliate from the Field Museum and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will be presenting “Searching for Colorado’s Tiktaalik on the West Coast of Laurentia.” Saturday, September 12th Junior Study Group Meeting – 2:00 PM at College of DuPage, TEC, Room 1038A “Volcanoes” Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, gallowayscottf@gmail.com. Saturday, September 19th Field Trip to Mount Orab for Ordovician Trilobites Details are here. Saturday, September 19th Paleontology…
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Denver Museum of Nature & Science – Only a few days left … Ends September 7th, 2026
Read more: Denver Museum of Nature & Science – Only a few days left … Ends September 7th, 2026Only a few days left!!!! Step inside the world of sauropods in “The World’s Largest Dinosaurs.” Stand beneath a towering, life-sized 60-foot Mamenchisaurus and discover the amazing biology behind the largest animals to ever live.
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Save the Date! 2027 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – March 20th and 21st, 2027
Read more: Save the Date! 2027 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – March 20th and 21st, 2027Save the date! The 2027 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show will be held on March 20th and 21st, 2027 at the DuPage County Fairgrounds. See you there!
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Mazon Monday #338: Howellitubus whitfieldorum… The Mazon Creek Worm That Wasn’t
Read more: Mazon Monday #338: Howellitubus whitfieldorum… The Mazon Creek Worm That Wasn’tThe history of Mazon Creek paleontology is filled with fossils that have been reinterpreted as new species when new information became available. Animals have been moved from one group to another, species have been renamed, and some fossils once thought to represent animals have turned out to be something else entirely. There are even some, like Tullymonstrum gregarium, whose place on the tree of life is still being determined. Another particularly interesting story is Howellitubus whitfieldorum. Howellitubus whitfieldorum was described by Eugene Richardson Jr. in the 1956 Fieldiana paper “Pennsylvanian Invertebrates of the Mazon Creek Area, Illinois – Marine Fauna”.…
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Would VELOCIRAPTOR make a good pet? | Cromo Paleo Show
Read more: Would VELOCIRAPTOR make a good pet? | Cromo Paleo ShowThe Cromo Paleo Show has an entertaining video on Youtube. Somehow, I don’t think a pet dinosaur will turn out well… Would Velociraptor make a good pet? 🦖 In this episode of the “Would It Make a Good Pet?” series, we dive deep into the REAL science behind owning one of the most famous dinosaurs of all time — Velociraptor. From the deserts of Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous to the terrifying depictions in Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, how accurate are these prehistoric predators really? Could you safely keep a Velociraptor enclosure? How dangerous would they actually be? What…
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ESCONI Field Trip to Mount Orab for Trilobites – Saturday, September 19th, 2026
Read more: ESCONI Field Trip to Mount Orab for Trilobites – Saturday, September 19th, 2026ESCONI will have a field trip to Flat Run Fossils in Mt. Orab, OH on Saturday September 19, 2026. There is an attendance limit of 16 people. Flat Run Fossils is a new pay-to-dig site in the famous Mt. Orab trilobite beds. For many years, thousands of gorgeous Flexicalymene and Isotelus trilobites have been collected […]
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Fossil Friday #332: Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri from Kansas
Read more: Fossil Friday #332: Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri from KansasToday, we have a Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri (see Mazon Monday #39) from the Tonganoxie Sandstone (Stranger Formation of the Douglas Group in the Virginian Stage) near Ottawa, Kansas. That formation has been dated to a range of 306 to 299 million years ago, which is younger than Mazon Creek. Many plant fossils were collected from the locality in the late 1970’s. Unfortunately, the site is now closed.
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Throwback Thursday #332: Another Don Auler Painting at the Rock Swap
Read more: Throwback Thursday #332: Another Don Auler Painting at the Rock SwapSome Don Auler art was on display at the recent ESCONI Rock Swap. Rick Rock had this painting of an owl on black shale up for sale. Long-time contributors B.J. and Mike Kukulka purchased it and graciously let us post it here.
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Mazon Creek Fossil Day 2026 – Saturday, October 10th, 2026 – Coal City Library
Read more: Mazon Creek Fossil Day 2026 – Saturday, October 10th, 2026 – Coal City LibraryThe 2026 Mazon Creek Fossil Day will be held on Saturday, October 10th, 2026 at the Coal City Library from 10 AM to 3 PM. See you there! Previous events
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Paleontology rocked by organic molecules found in 66-million-year-old dinosaur bones
Read more: Paleontology rocked by organic molecules found in 66-million-year-old dinosaur bonesScience Daily has a story about another discovery of organic molecules in dinosaur bones. Since the early 2000’s, paleontologists have been finding organic material in dinosaur bones. The discoveries have been met with skepticism by paleontologists. Now a study in the journal Analytical Chemistry adds new evidence. Professor Steve Taylor, chair of the Mass Spectrometry Research Group at the University of Liverpool’s Department of Electrical Engineering & Electronics, said: “This research shows beyond doubt that organic biomolecules, such as proteins like collagen, appear to be present in some fossils. “Our results have far-reaching implications. Firstly, it refutes the hypothesis that…
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Mazon Monday #337: Carbohymen testai
Read more: Mazon Monday #337: Carbohymen testaiI had a chance to catch up with Jack Wittry at the Field Museum this weekend. He mentioned that he had tracked down the insect whose name we first encountered at Tom Testa Day at the Carbon Hill School Museum back in June. At the time, Jack wasn’t sure whether Carbohymen testai was actually a valid name. After doing some digging, he not only confirmed it was a valid published name, but also located the actual fossil… in a box from the Czech Republic.
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RNA is supposed to fall apart within hours…
Read more: RNA is supposed to fall apart within hours…RNA is supposed to fall apart within hours, yet researchers have now read it from a mammoth frozen in Siberian permafrost 39,000 years ago — and the transcripts caught his muscle tissue in the middle of a stress response
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PBS Eons: When Earth Was a Toxic Wasteland
Read more: PBS Eons: When Earth Was a Toxic WastelandPBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the Permian Mass Extinction, the Earth’s worst mass extinction. Watch Eons: Life and Death on Pangea on the free PBS App: https://to.pbs.org/EonsApp or on the web here: https://pbs.org/eons ← use this link if you are outside of the U.S. For 3 million years, microbes ruled the Earth. But were these tiny survivors just lucky? Or did they play a more sinister role in the greatest disaster our planet has ever faced?
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Fossil Friday #331: Peachocaris strongi
Read more: Fossil Friday #331: Peachocaris strongiJerry Zhu posted this stunning example of Peachocaris strongi to the “Illinois, Mazon Creek, and Carboniferous Fossils of the World” group on Facebook a few weeks ago. The concretion was collect from Pit 11. From the looks of it, it must have opened via freeze/thaw.
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Throwback Thursday #331: Happy (Belated) Unearth Day, SUE!
Read more: Throwback Thursday #331: Happy (Belated) Unearth Day, SUE!Last Wednesday was SUE’s Unearth Day! SUE was found by Sue Hendrickson on August 12th, 1990. Sue hung back at camp, while the rest of the team from the Black Hills Institute went to town to fix a flat tire on one of their trucks. Sue decided to explore some area around the camp. She noticed some bone bits at the base of a hill and the rest is history…
Mazon Creek Fossil Day – October 10th, 2026!
Most Recent Post
- Mazon Monday #339: Braceville Fall 2026 Field Trip Report
At the end of August, ESCONI held our annual Fall field trip to the Braceville Spoil Pile, known as “Worm Hill.” It was a huge success. The weather cooperated for the most part. Saturday, August 29th was a beautiful day, with no rain and highs in the mid-70’s. Unfortunately, Saturday, August 30th started out with rain, but that slowed and stopped by about 10 AM. The ground soaked up most of the water and some of the shale was softened for our ready picks and shovels.
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Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!
| Friday, September 11th | General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom. Franklin Duffy, PhD student and research affiliate from the Field Museum and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will be presenting “Searching for Colorado’s Tiktaalik on the West Coast of Laurentia.” |
| Saturday, September 12th | Junior Study Group Meeting – 2:00 PM at College of DuPage, TEC, Room 1038A “Volcanoes” Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, gallowayscottf@gmail.com. |
| Saturday, September 19th | Field Trip to Mount Orab for Ordovician Trilobites Details are here. |
| Saturday, September 19th | Paleontology Study Group – 7:30 PM at College of DuPage, TEC, Room 1038A ESCONI Brag Night! |
| No meeting this month | Mineralogy Study Group |