Month: May 2021
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Mazon Monday #62: Common Descent Podcast Episode 110 – Mazon Creek Fossil Beds
This is Mazon Monday post #62. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. “Common Descent” is a podcast about paleontology, biology, and evolution. The hosts are David Moscato and Will Harris, who are paleontologists and science communicators. As it says on their website, they “love talking about fossils, evolution, and life history” …
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ESCONI at CGMA 2021
Today is the last day of the 2021 Chicagoland Gems and Minerals Association show. It’s at the Kane County Fairgrounds in St. Charles, IL. Masks are optional for vaccinated people, hand sanitizer will be everywhere and there will be extra space between vendors. There’s lots of vendors, interesting displays, and good friends…. See you there!
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Answers for the TBT #60 Mineral Quiz from November 1966
You have probably been waiting for the answers to Throwback Thursday #60’s mineral quiz. Well, wait no more…. how’d you do? Note: this quiz originated from Science Digest, but we got it from the KGMS (Kalamazoo Geological & Mineral Society). We’ve had a relationship with the KGMS, sharing a few field trips. They joined us…
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The CGMA 2021 Show is a GO! Saturday, May 29th and Sunday, May 30th, 2021
The 2021 Chicagoland Gems and Minerals Association show at the Kane County Fairgrounds in St. Charles, IL starts tomorrow! It will be held on both Saturday, May 29th and Sunday May 30th, 2021. Masks will be required, hand sanitizer will be everywhere and there will be extra space between vendors. See you there!
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Fossil Friday #58: Clam Clam from Chowder Flatts
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #58. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Clowder Flatts was a Mazon Creek fossil…
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Throwback Thursday #60: Mineral Quiz from November 1966
This is Throwback Thursday #60. 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 send them to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! We don’t have enough mineral posts and sorry to surprise everyone with a pop quiz…. But today, we…
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ESCONI Field Trip to Belvidere Quarry – June 26th, 2021
Belvidere, IL Quarry Field Trip There will be a field trip to a quarry near Belvidere, Illinois on Saturday, June 26, 2021, from 9AM to 12 noon. The rock is Ordovician, Galena Group. This is a “hard-rock” quarry (dolomite). If you like Hormotoma or Receptaculites, this is the place for you! The quarry has been…
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Ticks, Ticks, Ticks, Ticks, Ticks 2021!
With temperatures in the 80’s, it’s time for our annual Tick post. It’s getting warm and late spring/early summer is the peak of tick season. With the nice weather, you will probably be spending more time outside looking for fossils, minerals, etc. in the woods, fields, and quarries. Or at least, that’s what we hope……
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Mazon Monday #61: Video for May Paleontology Meeting – “A Historical Perspective on Collecting Mazon Creek and Pit 11” by Peter Kruty
This is Mazon Monday post #61. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. 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…
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Extraordinary Evolution Research Reveals Mammals in the Time of Dinosaurs Held Each Other Back
SciTechDaily has an article about mammals during the age of dinosaurs. A new study published in Current Biology looked at how mammals evolved before and after the extinction that took out the non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous. The study found that it wasn’t the dinosaurs that out competed the mammals, it was…
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PBS Eons: How Weasels Got Skinny
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about weasels and how they got their skinny body plan. Weasels have an extreme body plan that may push the boundaries of what’s metabolically possible. So when and how did this happen? Why’d the weasels get so skinny?
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Happy 222th Birthday, Mary Anning!
Mary Anning was born on May, 21st, 1799. She was a fossil collector, dealer, and paleontologist that lived in and around Lyme Regis a city on the South coast of England in the early 19th century. She is most famous for her discoveries of the first correctly identifier ichthyosaur, two of the first complete plesiosaurs, the…
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Fossil Friday #57: Cyperites bicarinatus
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #57. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week, we have a few…
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Throwback Thursday #59: The Rock Pile
This is Throwback Thursday #59. 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 send them to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! In the October 1962 edition of the ESCONI newsletter “The Earth Science News”, a poem called “The Rock…
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Earth’s Worst Mass Extinction Took Ten Times Longer on Land Than in the Water
SciTechDaily has a story about the Permian Mass Extinction. The worst mass extinction in Earth’s history, the Permian Mass Extinction happened about 252 million years ago. Researchers at the Field Museum in Chicago looked at the rate of extinction on land to see if it matched what is seen in the oceans. They found the…
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A Milwaukee Suburb Is Full of Ultrarare Fossils
Hakai Magazine has a story about a special fossil deposit in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The deposit dates to the Ordovician Period about 440 million years ago. It was discovered in 1984 by amateur paleontologists Jerry Gunderson and Ron Meyer. They found fossilized soft tissue why splitting open rocks from a thin layer called the Brandon Bridge…
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Mazon Monday #60: Annularia inflata
This is Mazon Monday post #60. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– This week, we are looking at a species of Annularia. Annularia is actually the foliage of a plant called Calamites. Calamites is classified as a Sphenopsid, which is a primitive vascular plant characterized by jointed ribbed stems and small…
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Trip Full! ESCONI Field Trip to Danville Shale Pile Fossils – Saturday, June 5th, 2021
Sorry, for now this trip is full! Danville Field Trip Rules An ESCONI field trip to the Danville Shale Pile for Pennsylvanian plant fossils is scheduled for June 5, 2021 from 10 AM to 3 PM. This is on private property and there is an attendance limit of 20 people. The gate will be secured…
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PBS Eons: When Trees Took Over the World
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the first “trees”… hint, they didn’t look like trees back then. 420 million years ago, the forest floor of what’s now New York was covered with a plant that didn’t look like a tree at all, except its roots were made of wood. Instead…
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Fossil Friday #56: Braceville Mazon Creek Fossils
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #56. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! This weekend, May 15th and 16th, 2021,…
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Throwback Thursday #58: Looking Back At ESCONI For May 2021
This is Throwback Thursday #58. 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 send them to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! This week we have a look back at ESCONI 25 and 50 years ago… May 1996 and May…
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ESCONI May 2021 General Meeting – May 14th, 2021 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “Enigmatic worms from the Burgess Shale reveal a novel symbiosis”
ESCONI is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. We hope to see you there! The Zoom link is below. Date/Time: Friday, May 14, 2021 – 8:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada) Topic: “Enigmatic worms from the Burgess Shale reveal a novel symbiosis.” Presented by: Paleontologist, Dr. Karma Nanglu, of the Smithsonian Institution. Excerpt from 5/7/16 New York…
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Smithsonian: An Ode to the World’s Most Average Dinosaurs
Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the appreciation for the average dinosaur – a duckbilled dinosaur like Edmontosaurus. To truly understand the dinosaurs, one needs to look past the flashy and embrace the average as that is where the true clues to what life was like back in the Mesozoic. Out of all these impressive…
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Phys.org: Fossil of ancient squid eating a crustacean while being eaten by an ancient shark
Phys.org has a story about a very strange and rare fossil. It’s sort of the turducken of the fossil world. In this case, researchers described a fossil, which dates to the Jurassic Period about 180 million years ago, of a belemnite eating a crustacean, which was in turn being eaten by a shark. The description…
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Mazon Monday #59: Cyclopteris orbicularis
This is Mazon Monday post #59. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– This week, we visit an interesting plant fossil called Cyclopteris orbicularis, which is a circular leaf associated with the seed ferns Laveineopteris, Neuropteris, Reticulopteris, Odontopteris, and Macroneuropteris. The Cyclopteris leaves are attached to the lower parts of the…
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Nature: Newly Identified Species of Saber-Toothed Cat Was So Big It Hunted Rhinos in America
Nature as an article about the identification of a new species of large saber-toothed cat. The animal, Machairodus lahayishupup, lived between 5 and 9 million years ago in North America. It’s larger than its ancient relative Smilodon, weighing in around 600 pounds or larger. The research has been published in the Journal of Mammalian Evolution. A…
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Cahokia: What Doomed a Sprawling City Near St. Louis 1,000 Years Ago?
The New York Times has a story about Cahokia, which was a Native American city in pre-Columbian times. Cahokia was located near Collinsville, IL across the Mississippi River from what is now St. Louis, MO. It rose around 1050 CE and reached its zenith around 1100 CE. At its apex with a population of 20,000,…
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Fossil Friday #55: Cyclopteris trichomanoides
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #55. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we visit another Mazon Creek plant…
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Throwback Thursday #57: Loch Ness Outdone: Rediscovery of the Coelacanth
This is Throwback Thursday #57. 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 send them to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! Youtube has many good videos. Some are regular series. One of my favorites to watch during my workout…
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ESCONI Field Trip to Danville Shale Pile Fossils – Saturday, June 5th, 2021
Danville Field Trip Rules An ESCONI field trip to the Danville Shale Pile for Pennsylvanian plant fossils is scheduled for June 5, 2021 from 10 AM to 3 PM. This is on private property and there is an attendance limit of 20 people. The gate will be secured once we are in and locked when…
