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ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show
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- PBS Eons: 130 Million Years Ago, the World Caught Fire
PBS Eons has a new video. This one is about the evolution of flowering plants. It seems that for flowering… Read more: PBS Eons: 130 Million Years Ago, the World Caught Fire
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Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!
| Friday, February 13th | General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom Dale Simpson will present “Diggin’ Illinois: A hands-on introduction to the fascinating archaeological record of Illinois.” |
| Saturday, February 14th | Junior Study Group – 2:00 PM, Topic “Lighted Display Tracing Rock, Mineral and Fossil Specimens” by Finn Lutz, ESCONI Member Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, gallowayscottf@gmail.com. The meeting will be in person at the College of DuPage Technical Education Center (TEC) Building – Room 1038A (Map). |
| Saturday, February 21st | Paleontology Study Group – 7:30 PM via Zoom Arvid Aase will present “Death to Discovery: Taphonomy of the Fossil Lake Lagerstatten (Green River Group).“ |
| No meeting this month | Mineralogy Study Group |
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Throwback Thursday #299: Macfallite
Read more: Throwback Thursday #299: MacfalliteThis 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. It was named for Russell P. MacFall (1903-1983). MacFall was an editor for the Chicago Tribune newspaper and, earlier, for other newspapers. He was an amateur mineralogist interested in systematic mineralogy and an author of six books on popular mineralogy, paleontology, and geology. Russell did…
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WHY DINOSAURS? Award-Winning Dinosaur Documentary!
Read more: 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 out! An award-winning documentary about dinosaurs and the people who love them. From prestigious museums and universities to blockbuster films, amusement park rides, video games, and toys—dinosaurs have fascinated us for generations. But… why? WHY DINOSAURS? follows dino-obsessed teen James Pinto and his filmmaker father…
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ESCONI January 2026 General Meeting – January 9th, 2026 at 8:00 PM – “Fossil Birds of Wyoming”
Read more: 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 state are mined by the thousands and sold in rock shops all over the world. Wyoming also has great deposits of fossil mammals, and reptiles such as crocodiles and turtles. But what about birds? In general, bird fossils are generally very uncommon. This is mainly…
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Mazon Monday #303: Smithixerxes juliarum
Read more: Mazon Monday #303: Smithixerxes juliarumThis is Mazon Monday post #303. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Smithixerxes juliarum is among the rarest animals found in the Mazon Creek fossil deposit. It belongs to an extinct group of arthropods known as the euthycarcinoids, which ranged from the Cambrian to the Triassic periods. Some researchers believe euthycarcinoids may have been amphibious, capable of venturing between water and land. A few species of euthycarcinoids are known from Mazon Creek, including: These fossils are exceptionally rare within the Mazon Creek biota. In fact, in the comprehensive 1985 study titled “Biota of a Pennsylvanian muddy coast:…
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Adam Savage at the American Museum of Natural History
Read more: Adam Savage at the American Museum of Natural HistoryThe 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 their existence is limited to bone, footprints and skin impressions at best? How do you decide on color? Pose? Scale? Even setting? At the @AmericanMuseumofNaturalHistory, curator/paleontologist Roger Benson and senior principal preparators Rebecca Meah and Jake Adams talk to Adam Savage about how they came…
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PRI’s Wonderful Life
Read more: PRI’s Wonderful LifeHere’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 about $1 million away from being able to pay off our mortgage. But in early October one of our Board members wrote a short letter to The Ithaca Times, and this resulted in a front page story. At around the same time, we hired a…
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Fossil Friday #298: Seed Fern Fiddlehead – Spiropteris
Read more: Fossil Friday #298: Seed Fern Fiddlehead – SpiropterisThis 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 frond of a young fern. This specimen comes from a seed fern, most likely Neuropteris. At Mazon Creek, fiddleheads are assigned to the species Spiropteris sp. (see Mazon Monday #207). This breathtaking specimen comes from Jeremy Zimmerman. Thanks for sharing, Jeremy!
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Throwback Thursday #298: Looking Back At ESCONI For January 2026
Read more: Throwback Thursday #298: Looking Back At ESCONI For January 2026This is Throwback Thursday #298. 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. 25 Years Ago – January 2001 50 Years Ago – January 1976 70 Years Ago – January 1956
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Spinosaurus relative longer than a pickup truck stalked Thailand’s rivers 125 million years ago
Read more: Spinosaurus relative longer than a pickup truck stalked Thailand’s rivers 125 million years agoLiveScience has a story about a spinosaur that lived in Thailand 125 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous Period. The animal was about 25 feet long (7-8 meters) and likely ate the fish that swam in the rivers. The new dinosaur has yet to be named and was discovered in the Sam Ran locality of the Khok Kruat rock formation in northeastern Thailand. “This discovery from Thailand helps us better understand what spinosaurines looked like and how they evolved in Asia,” Adun Samathi, an assistant professor at the Walai Rukhavej Botanical Research Institute and Mahasarakham University in Thailand, told Live…
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Ancient oceans were ruled by super predators unlike anything today
Read more: Ancient oceans were ruled by super predators unlike anything todayScienceDaily has a story about the top predators of the past. Researchers from McGill University looked at Colombia’s Paja Formation, which dates to the early Cretaceous Period, some 122 million years ago. That formation preserves the ancient marine ecosystem, which had a very complex food chain, more so than the modern oceans. The paper was published in the journal Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Trophic levels describe an organism’s position in a food chain based on how it gets energy and nutrients. Put simply, they explain who eats whom within an ecosystem. In today’s oceans, food chains typically reach only…
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Mazon Monday #302: The Wreck of the 5560
Read more: Mazon Monday #302: The Wreck of the 5560This is Mazon Monday post #302. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. The Marion Power Shovel Company was an American company that designed, manufactured, and built steam shovels, power shovels, blast hole drills, excavators, and dragline excavators. The company was headquartered in Marion, Ohio and operated from 1884 to 1997, when it was acquired by its competitor Bucyrus International, Inc. Marion-built shovels and other products were among the best known trade names in earth moving equipment during the twentieth century. Marion’s large and small steam shovels were used by building contractors, railroads, and the US Army Corps…
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Giant sea monsters lived in rivers at the end of the dinosaur age
Read more: Giant sea monsters lived in rivers at the end of the dinosaur ageScienceDaily has a story about mosasaurs. It seems that giant mosasaurs didn’t just live in the oceans… they also prowled rivers. A large tooth found in a North Dakota deposit along with a Tyrannosaurus rex tooth and a jawbone from a crocodylian revealed an isotope signature consistent with a live in fresh water. See the paper “King of the Riverside” in the journal BMC Zoology. The tooth was uncovered in 2022 from a river deposit in North Dakota. It was found alongside a tooth from a Tyrannosaurus rex and a jawbone from a crocodylian, in a region already known for…
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An Engine of Fossil Discovery Fights Its Own Extinction
Read more: An Engine of Fossil Discovery Fights Its Own ExtinctionThe New York Times has a story about the financial troubles at the Museum of the Earth and the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, N.Y. The institution was establish almost 100 years ago and has amassed one of the largest collections of fossils in North America. “No one has ever experienced trying to rehouse a collection like this,” said Warren Allmon, the director of the institution and a professor of paleontology at Cornell University. “If we had to close, there would be no one institution that could take all the collection.” For decades, the museum has relied on a single,…
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Fossil Friday #297: Alethopteris serlii
Read more: Fossil Friday #297: Alethopteris serliiThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #297. 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 is a favorite of many Mazon Creek collectors. Alethopteris serlii was a seed fern that existed during the Carboniferous Period. It is commonly found in the Mazon Creek terrestrial deposits. It was described by Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847) in 1836. Brongniart was a French chemist, mineralogist, geologist, paleontologist, and zoologist. He had…
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Throwback Thursday #297: Season’s Greetings from the Langfords!
Read more: Throwback Thursday #297: Season’s Greetings from the Langfords!This is Throwback Thursday #297. 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. George Langford, Sr. (1876–1964) was a prolific collector of Mazon Creek fossils, assembling multiple significant collections over his lifetime. He sold or donated these collections to museums across the country, including the Illinois State Museum and the Denver Museum of Natural History. In 1947, he gifted the bulk of his material to the Field Museum of Natural History—then known as the Chicago Natural…
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2026 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #1: Tully Monsters
Read more: 2026 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #1: Tully MonstersThis is the preview post #1 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. Ok, how about an early Christmas present? This is grouping of Tullymonsters (what do you call a herd of Tullymonsters???) in a Riker mount. This mounting displays four specimens, three with part and counterpart. The single is a large detailed fossil. The auction for this…
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50 Insane Geography Facts About Illinois (You Won’t Believe)
Read more: 50 Insane Geography Facts About Illinois (You Won’t Believe)Here’s a way to educate yourself about Illinois geography. This video is from the Across the Globe channel on Youtube. Illinois isn’t just cornfields, Chicago traffic, and deep-dish pizza, it’s one of the strangest states in America, and it’s hiding some of the wildest secrets in the entire Midwest. In this video, we reveal 50 unbelievable facts about Illinois that will completely change how you see the Prairie State. From ancient oceans buried under its cornfields to sand so pure it powers modern technology, this is the real Illinois you’ve never heard about before.
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Mazon Monday #301: Cordaianthus ovatus
Read more: Mazon Monday #301: Cordaianthus ovatusThis is Mazon Monday post #301. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Cordaianthus ovatus is thought to be the fertile structure for Cordaites borassifolius (see Mazon Monday #299), an extinct genus of early gymnosperms. Cordaites probably grew to more than 100 feet tall in swampy conditions, forming forests similar to modern day mangroves. Cordaianthus ovatus was originally named Schutzia bracteata by Leo Lesquereux in 1870. He later renamed it to Cordaianthus ovatus in 1880. Lesquereux, a Swiss-born bryologist, is widely considered one of the fathers of American paleobotany. One of his best known works is the book “Atlas to…
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“Bones Almost on Top of Each Other” – Extraordinary Dinosaur Fossil Site Discovered in the Hațeg Basin
Read more: “Bones Almost on Top of Each Other” – Extraordinary Dinosaur Fossil Site Discovered in the Hațeg BasinSciTechDaily has a story about an extraordinary dinosaur fossils site in Transylvania. The Hateg Basin is famous for its dinosaur fossils. The site dates to the late Cretaceous Period, some 72 million years ago. So far, thousands of fossils have been found, including bones of amphibians, turtles, crocodiles, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and mammals. A recent paper in the journal PLOS ONE documents the site. “Detailed study of the rocks at the K2 site indicates that a small lake once existed here, which was periodically fed by flash floods carrying animal carcasses. As the flow of the rivers slowed rapidly upon entering the…
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PBS Eons: When a Tiny Land Bridge Triggered an Ice Age
Read more: PBS Eons: When a Tiny Land Bridge Triggered an Ice AgeThere’s a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about the origin of Panama and how it changed the world. On land, the Isthmus of Panama kicked off possibly the greatest natural experiment in the history of life on Earth. In the water, this narrow strip of land did something completely different: it divided. And that division would have a much bigger effect on the planet than the land connection ever did.