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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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Mazon Monday #287: Braceville Fall 2025 Report
Read more: Mazon Monday #287: Braceville Fall 2025 ReportThis is Mazon Monday post #287. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. The Braceville Fall 2025 Field Trip was held on the weekend of September 6th and 7th, 2025. We had perfect weather… sunny with temperatures in the mid-70s. There was nearly 100% attendance. It was two days of fun in the sun! We had fossil pours on each day with contributions from Andrew Young, Chris Berg, Jeff Allen, Marty Houdek, Ralph Jewell, and Rich Holm. Thanks guys! Starting the day right! The hill seems smaller. On Sunday, we had some special visitors as some professional…
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How evolution works | Dave Hone and Lex Fridman | on Youtube
Read more: How evolution works | Dave Hone and Lex Fridman | on YoutubeDavid Hone was on the Lex Fridman podcast discussing evolution. Dave Hone is a paleontologist, expert on dinosaurs, co-host of the Terrible Lizards podcast, and author of numerous scientific papers and books on the behavior and ecology of dinosaurs. He lectures at Queen Mary University of London on topics of Ecology, Zoology, Biology, and Evolution.
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PBS Eons: That Time the Earth Was Sticky
Read more: PBS Eons: That Time the Earth Was StickyPBS Eons has a new episode. This is about Cretaceous amber… what it is, how it forms, and what is found in it. The Cretaceous Resinous Interval, a 54-million year period where amber was preserved in hundreds of locations across the world, was a gooey, gummy point in Earth’s history – and then amber suddenly disappeared for another 20 million years. So, we have to ask: what exactly made this time period so very, very sticky?
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ESCONI September 2025 General Meeting via Zoom – “Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site”
Read more: ESCONI September 2025 General Meeting via Zoom – “Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site”ESCONI General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom – Dr. Angela Cooper will be presenting “Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.” Zoom link Dr. Angela Cooper is originally from Mascoutah, IL and grew up learning about the great site of Cahokia Mounds. Her educational and professional career has centered around Illinois archaeology. Dr. Cooper received her MA from University of Tulsa studying the relationships of Hopewell sites in the Illinois River Valley. After graduation she worked as the supervisor of volunteer excavations of the East Palisade at Cahokia Mounds for two summers and worked as a Seasonal Interpreter at the site…
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Fossil Friday #282: Crossotheca sagittata
Read more: Fossil Friday #282: Crossotheca sagittataThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #282. 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 Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today, we have a very nice Crossotheca sagittata. C. sagittata is the fertile form of Pecopteris fontainai (see Mazon Monday #129). See the drawings below from George’s Basement. The photo shows a specimen with both forms. This beautiful specimen was sent in by Connor Puritz. He collected it earlier this year from the…
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Throwback Thursday #282: Field Museum Postcard
Read more: Throwback Thursday #282: Field Museum PostcardThis is Throwback Thursday #282. 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. I found this old Field Museum postcard at the recent ESCONI Rock Swap. It’s a photo of the coal forest in the Evolving Planet exhibit. This exhibit was originally in the Ernest R. Graham Hall in the Field Museum. The postcard is from the middle 20th century. The coal forest hasn’t changed much over the years. Here’s a photo from the book “A Forest…
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Paleontologist Mark Norell (Coolest Dude Alive) RIP (1957-2025)
Read more: Paleontologist Mark Norell (Coolest Dude Alive) RIP (1957-2025)This announcement is from the Witmer Lab at Ohio University. I’m shaken by the news of Mark Norell’s passing—a good friend, a trusted colleague, and a giant in our field. Coincidentally, I got the news as I was working on my talk for the International Symposium on Asian Dinosaurs in Fukui later this month. Here’s my slide acknowledging Mark’s impact on Asian dinosaur science in general, as well as my team’s work on Asian dinosaurs in that he graciously allowed me to study and even borrow and CT scan so many of the spectacular fossils they collected. It really hurt…
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Giant Dinosaurs Were Riddled With a Devastating Disease, Fossils Show
Read more: Giant Dinosaurs Were Riddled With a Devastating Disease, Fossils ShowScience Alert has a piece about dinosaurs… sauropods might not have been all that healthy. The animals that lived in what is now Brazil, might have suffered from bone infections caused by bacterium, fungus, virus, or parasite.
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Mazon Monday #286: There’s a Mother Lode of Fossils in Chicago’s Backyard, and It Could Hold Clues to the Evolution of Life on Earth
Read more: Mazon Monday #286: There’s a Mother Lode of Fossils in Chicago’s Backyard, and It Could Hold Clues to the Evolution of Life on EarthThis is Mazon Monday post #286. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Last week, Mazon Creek, the Field Museum, and ESCONI were back in the news! WTTW, Chicago’s public television station, ran an article highlighting Mazon Creek. The story is an excellent read, exploring the scientific importance and new research of the site along with the perspective of amateur fossil collectors. There’s a Mother Lode of Fossils in Chicago’s Backyard, and It Could Hold Clues to the Evolution of Life on Earth When Arjan Mann joined the Field Museum as assistant curator of early tetrapods, it…
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Oldest Known Fossil of an Armored Ankylosaur Is ‘Far Weirder’ Than Paleontologists Expected
Read more: Oldest Known Fossil of an Armored Ankylosaur Is ‘Far Weirder’ Than Paleontologists ExpectedSmithsonian Magazine has an article about a weird ankylosaur. Its name is Spicomellus afer, and it lived about 165 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. It had three-foot-long spikes around its collar and plates down its shoulders…. great armor against the predators that lived with it in the flood plains of what is now northern Africa. Read the full description in a paper in the journal Nature. “When we originally named Spicomellus, there were doubts that it was an ankylosaur at all,” says Susannah Maidment, a paleontologist at London’s Natural History Museum, in a statement. “Now, not only can we confirm beyond a…
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The geology that holds up the Himalayas is not what we thought, scientists discover
Read more: The geology that holds up the Himalayas is not what we thought, scientists discoverLive Science has a story about the what is holding up Himalayas and it’s it isn’t what we thought. Scientists had theorized the crumpled region caused by the squeezing of Tibet by the tectonic forces of the Indian sub-continent colliding with the Asia had doubled the thickness of Earth’s crust beneath the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau to the north. That extra thickness alone carries the weight of the mountain ranges. That theory was published by Swiss geologist Émile Argand in 1924. It shows the Indian and Asian crusts stacked on top of each other, together stretching 45 to 50 miles…
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Fossil Friday #281: Dasyleptus sp.
Read more: Fossil Friday #281: Dasyleptus sp.This is the “Fossil Friday” post #281. 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 Bluesky/Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Dasyleptus is an extinct genus of monurian insect. They are known from the Mazon Creek biota, other Carboniferous localities, and have been found in later deposits that date to the Permian. They get their name for the single tail spike. Their closest living relative today is the Silverfish. In fact, some recent research…
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Throwback Thursday #281: Looking Back At ESCONI For September 2025
Read more: Throwback Thursday #281: Looking Back At ESCONI For September 2025This is Throwback Thursday #281. 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 – September 2000 50 Years Ago – September 1975 70 Years Ago – September 1955
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ESCONI Field Trip to Bellevue, MI Quarry on Saturday, September 27th, 2025
Read more: ESCONI Field Trip to Bellevue, MI Quarry on Saturday, September 27th, 2025A field trip to a quarry in Bellevue, MI is scheduled for Saturday, September 27th, 2025. This is a joint trip with the Kalamazoo Geological and Mineral Society (KGMS), and will be led by KGMS members. There is space for 15 ESCONI members. The trip will be from 9 AM ET to 3 PM ET. Note the time change for those coming from Illinois! The quarry exposes the Bayport Limestone (Mississippian/Lower Carboniferous). Minerals (calcite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, etc.) and fossils (coral, brachiopods, shark teeth, etc.) can be found. You must register to go on this trip. See rule 8 below for…
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ESCONI Events for September 2025
Read more: ESCONI Events for September 2025You do not need to be a member to attend meetings Sat, Sep 6th and Sun, Sep 7th Field Trip – Braceville, IL for Mazon Creek Fosssils Fri, Sep 12th – 8:00 PM General Meeting – 8 PM – via Zoom Dr. Angela Cooper will be presenting “Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.” Sat, Sep 13th – 7:00 PM Scott Galloway will present a program on meteorites. 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 1038B (Map). Sat, Sep 13th Field Trip – Mount…
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This Crocodile Relative Was One of Dinosaurs’ Most Fearsome Predators
Read more: This Crocodile Relative Was One of Dinosaurs’ Most Fearsome PredatorsThe New York Times’ Trilobite column has an interesting story about a fierce crocodile that lived alongside the dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Period about 72 million years ago. Kostensuchus measured about 11½ feet long and weighed 551 pounds. The fossils were found in March 2020 in Santa Cruz, a province in Argentina. The animal was described in a paper in the journal PLOS One. While North America and Asia had their share of Cretaceous crocodiles, they were mostly from families that had evolved a semiaquatic lifestyle. But crocodiles took a different trajectory in South America and Africa, where several families walked…
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2025 Mazon Creek Fossil Day, October 11th, 2025 at the Coal City Library
Read more: 2025 Mazon Creek Fossil Day, October 11th, 2025 at the Coal City LibraryThe 2025 Mazon Creek Fossil Day will be held on October 11th, 2025 at the Coal City Library from 10 AM to 3 PM. See you there! Previous events
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Mazon Monday #285: Etacystis communis
Read more: Mazon Monday #285: Etacystis communisThis is Mazon Monday post #285. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. One of the more problematic animals from Mazon Creek is Etacystis communis, known as the Aitch or “H” animal by amateur collectors. It was described by Matthew Nitecki and Frederick Schram in “Etacystis communis, a fossil of uncertain affinities from the Mazon Creek fauna (Pennsylvanian of Illinois)”, which was published in the Journal of Paleontology. The authors did not assign it to a phylum. Researchers have suggested a hemichordate or hydrozoan affinity, however the animal is missing a stomochord. E. communis, a soft-bodied animal, is only known from…
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Paleontologist Discovers First Known Silurian Horseshoe Crab
Read more: Paleontologist Discovers First Known Silurian Horseshoe CrabSciNews has an article about the discovery of a horseshoe crab fossil in the Silurian. Horseshoe crabs are known from the late Ordovician, but there was a gap of 80 million years from the Devonian. This animal, Ciurcalimulus discobolus, lived about 424 million years ago. It was collected by Samuel J. Ciurca in 1975 from the Kokomo Member of the Wabash Formation in Indiana. The fossil was described by Dr. James Lamdell in “The first Silurian horseshoe crab reveals details of the xiphosuran ground plan”, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In 2020, Mr. Lamdell did a presentation for ESCONI about the…
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Field Museum: After the Age of Dinosaurs
Read more: Field Museum: After the Age of DinosaursThe Field Museum has a new exhibit that looks at the time after the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct during the K-Pg Event about 66 million years ago. How did the world recover? And, how long did it take? Chicago-based illustrator Jay Ryan created original artwork for the Field Museum’s “After the Age of Dinosaurs” exhibition.