Month: January 2026
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You Wouldn’t Want to Butt Heads With This Small Dinosaur
The New York Times’ Trilobites column has a story about the discovery of a new dinosaur in Mexico. The animal, Xenovenator espinosai, was discovered in 2000 in the Cerro del Pueblo formation in northeastern Mexico by Martha Aguillón-Martinez. It lived about about 73 million years ago when the area was a marshy coastline. The animal’s…
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Fossil Friday #302: A Beautiful Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri from Braceville!
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #302. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week, we have a beautiful pyritized Macroneuropteris sheuchzeri…
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Throwback Thursday #302: More Old Cars
This is Throwback Thursday #302. 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! email:esconi.info@gmail.com. In Throwback Thursday #267, we posted field trip photos that showed old cars from the 1950s and 1960s.…
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Collecting Echinoids (Sea Urchins) in North Jutland, Denmark
Today, we have an interesting guest post from long-time ESCONI member Marie Angkuw. Marie is part of the Lyme Regis Babes as John Catalani has named them. Marie, Rhonda Gates, Jann Bergsten, and Deborah Lovely have taken numerous trips to Europe to collect fossils. They’ve been to Lyme Regis (multiple times), Whitby, Yorkshire, and the…
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2026 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #2: Fluorite, Galena, and Barite From Bingham, NM
This is the preview post #2 for the 2026 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2026 will be held on March 21th and 22nd at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here. In…
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Mazon Monday #306: Drevotella proteana
This is Mazon Monday post #306. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Drevotella proteana is believed to be a hydrozoan. It lived during the Pennsylvanian Period. Fossils of this soft-bodied animal are known only from the Mazon Creek fossil deposit, where exceptional preservation allows such delicate organisms to be recorded. Hydrozoans…
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Chicago Rocks & Minerals Society’s Annual Silent Auction, Saturday, March 14, 2026
Chicago Rocks & Minerals Society’s Annual Silent Auction Saturday, March 14, 2026 6 to 9 p.m. St. Peter’s United Church of Christ 8013 Laramie Ave., Skokie, IL (Across the street from the public library on Oakton) Plus a special live auction of high-end specimens during the last half-hour! The first table closes at 6:30 p.m.…
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PBS: Inside the Vault Where They Keep the Dinosaur Apocalypse
PBS has an interesting video about the K-Pg extinction. Check it out! A giant asteroid impact ended the age of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. How did this mass extinction play out, moment by moment? In this video we meet a geologist who has explored the asteroid crater and learn what the rocks tell…
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Fossil Friday #301: French Palaeocaris
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #301. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! In Mazon Monday #294, we highlighted the fossil site at…
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Throwback Thursday #301: Century of Progress – Sinclair Exhibit
This is Throwback Thursday #301. 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! email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Ran across an interesting post on the Original Chicago Group on Facebook last month (December 2025). In…
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Video for ESCONI January 2026 Paleontology Meeting – “Getting Lost Can Lead to Treasure – Edrioasteroids”
Jack Kallmeyer President of the Dry Dredgers will present “Getting Lost Can Lead to Treasure – Edrioasteroids – What to Do When You Find Thousands”. The meeting was held on January 17th, 2026 at 7:30 PM. While growing my early collection in the Cincinnatian, one of the most desired fossils that I sought after was…
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Video for ESCONI January 2026 General Meeting – “Fossil Birds of Wyoming”
Jean-Pierre Cavigelli, of Casper College in Casper, WY, presented “Fossil Birds of Wyoming”. Wyoming’s fossil bird record spans much of the Late Cretaceous through the Cenozoic, though its completeness varies widely through time. The state’s oldest known bird fossils come from the late Cretaceous Mesa Verde Formation and Pierre Shale, dating to about 79 million…
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Mazon Monday #305: Herdina mirificus
This is Mazon Monday post #305. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Herdina mirificus is an extinct species of short-winged insect, currently classified in the order Protorthoptera. Protorthoptera is an extinct lineage of insects that lived during the middle to late Pennsylvanian Period some 318 to 299 million years ago. The…
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PBS Eons: How Brawn Led to Brains
PBS Eons has a new video. This one is about the evolution of brains. While we often think of brains as some kind of triumph over brawn, it turns out that those two things might not be mutually exclusive, and in fact, they’ve been linked for far longer than we might imagine. PBS Member Stations…
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There’s Something MUCH Bigger Than Yellowstone. And It Will Happen Again
PBS Terra has an interesting video about super volcanoes and they larger cousin… Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs). Yellowstone was massive. Roughly a thousand times larger than the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the biggest eruption in the history of the continental United States. And if Yellowstone erupted again, the consequences for the U.S. and the…
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Fossil Friday #300: Orthotarbus robustus from the River
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #300. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Is there a better way to post our 300th Fossil…
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Throwback Thursday #300: Poem… The Rockhound
This is Throwback Thursday #301. 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! email:esconi.info@gmail.com. We have a poem this week. This poem appeared in the July 1970 edition of the ESCONI newsletter.…
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This Dinosaur Really Knew How to Get a Grip
The New York Times Trilobites column has an interesting story about a tiny egg stealing dinosaur that lived about 67 million years ago in what is now Mongolia. Manipulonyx reshetovi had a strange spike-covered hand, which provided its genus name meaning “manipulating claw”. The animal’s fossil was discovered in 1979 and described in the journal…
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ESCONI January 2026 Paleontology Meeting – January 17th, 2026 at 7:30 PM – “Getting Lost Can Lead to Treasure – Edrioasteroids”
Jack Kallmeyer President of the Dry Dredgers will present “Getting Lost Can Lead to Treasure – Edrioasteroids – What to Do When You Find Thousands”. The meeting will be held on January 17th, 2026 at 7:30 PM. While growing my early collection in the Cincinnatian, one of the most desired fossils that I sought after…
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Mazon Monday #304: Field Museum… Illinois by the sea
This is Mazon Monday post #304. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. In May 1970, the Field Museum opened an exhibit about Mazon Creek. It was called “Illinois by the sea: a coal age environment” and ran from May 25th until September 25th. It was a successful exhibit that featured Field…
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NPR Short Wave: The dinosaur secrets found in the archives of a natural history museum
NPR’s Short Wave show has an episode about dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. What happens behind the scenes of a dinosaur exhibit? Short Wave host Regina Barber got to find out … by taking a trip to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. In the museum’s basement, she talked to…
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The Year in Neanderthals
The New York Times has a nice article that highlights new understanding into who the Neanderthals were. Neanderthals lived across Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years before going extinct some 40,000 years ago. A bunch of new high profile studies were published in 2025. Barely three decades ago, these ancient hominids were still being…
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Fossil Friday #299: Annularia sphenophylloides
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #299. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we have another beautiful contribution from George Witaczek. This time…
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Throwback Thursday #299: Macfallite
This is Throwback Thursday #299. 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! email:esconi.info@gmail.com. This post is a follow up to last week’s Throwback Thursday, where we mentioned the mineral species Macfallite.…
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WHY DINOSAURS? Award-Winning Dinosaur Documentary!
The award winning documentary “Why Dinosaurs” is now available on Youtube! The documentary covers quite a bit of the history and the science of paleontology. Did I mention that ESCONI’s own Rob Sula has his own segment? Oh, there’s also a great website – whydinosaurs.com. The website has extended interviews and other extras! Check it…
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ESCONI January 2026 General Meeting – January 9th, 2026 at 8:00 PM – “Fossil Birds of Wyoming”
Jean-Pierre Cavigelli, of Casper College in Casper, WY, will present “Fossil Birds of Wyoming”. Wyoming is well known for its fossils of all kinds. Dinosaurs are probably the most famous. They were first discovered here in the late 1800’s and are still being uncovered and studied nowadays. Fossil fishes from the southwest corner of the…
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Mazon Monday #303: Happy 60th Birthday, Tully Monster!
Happy 60th Birthday to the Tully Monster! Well, actually tomorrow is the day. And, I guess technically it’s really been 307 – 309 million years, but who’s really counting. Eugene Richardson, Jr., who first called it “Mr. Tully’s monster”, described the animal in the paper “Pennsylvanian invertebrates of the Mazon Creek Area, Illinois: the morphology…
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Adam Savage at the American Museum of Natural History
The AMNH has a new exhibit called “Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs”. Adam Savage visited the museum just before the exhibit opened in November, There are a series of videos on Youtube. How do you come up with the physical representation of animals we know lived on Earth, when the evidence of…
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PRI’s Wonderful Life
Here’s a followup to the New York Times’ post about the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) and the Museum of the Earth’s financial woes… they found funding and will continue operation! By late summer, although gifts continued to arrive at roughly twice the rate of previous “normal” years, larger gifts had slowed and we were still…
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Fossil Friday #298: Seed Fern Fiddlehead – Spiropteris
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #298. Expect this to be a regular feature of the website. We will post fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! This week’s Fossil Friday features a fiddlehead — the coiled…
