Category: Mazon Creek
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Fossil Friday #206: Cyclus americanus
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #206. 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! We have a large well-preserved Cyclus americanus…
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Trip Full: ESCONI Field Trip to Danville Shale Pile Fossils – Saturday, April 27th, 2024
This trip is now full. Danville Field Trip Rules for April 27, 2024 An ESCONI field trip to the Danville Shale Pile for Pennsylvanian fossils is scheduled for April 27, 2024 starting at 10 AM. This is on private property and there is an attendance limit of 25 people. The gate will be secured once…
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Mazon Monday #209: Walter’s Spider
Today, we have another post about the “Richardson’s Guide to the Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek”. This one addresses the amazing spider on the book’s jacket. That beautiful specimen was generously donated to the Mazon Creek Project by Rita and Walter Lietz. The fossil was referred to as “Walter’s Spider” for many years by their…
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Fossil Friday #205: Bifurcated Asterophylites from Indiana
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #205. 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! —————————————————– Asterophyllites equisetiformis is a part of…
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Mazon Monday #208: A Very Special Book
This is Mazon Monday post #208. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– We ran across another great post over on Facebook by Steve Pavelsky in the “Illinois Mazon Creek, and Carboniferous Fossils of the World” group. If you’re on Facebook and a fan of Mazon Creek, this is one of…
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Fossil Friday #204: Annularia inflata
This is Mazon Monday post #204. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! Fossil Friday is here with a beautiful Annularia inflata. A. inflata is the foliage for Calamites, a genus of extinct horsetail “trees”. They lived in the coal swamps of the Carboniferous and Permian periods and provide much of the…
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Mazon Monday #207: Spiropteris sp.
This is Mazon Monday post #207. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Spiropteris sp. are immature fern fronds. They are also called fiddleheads. The name Spiropteris was established in 1869 by Wilhelm Philippe Schimper (1808-1880), who was an Alsatian botanist. From 1862 until 1879, he was a professor of geology and…
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Fossil Friday #203: Alethopteris serlii from the Mazon River
This is Mazon Monday post #203. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! For Fossil Friday this week, we have an absolutely stunning Alethopteris serlii from the Mazon River. This specimen was collected by long time ESCONI member Marie Angkuw. This one was opened via freeze/thaw after being plucked from the river…
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2024 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #6!
This is the preview post #6 for the 2024 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2024 will be held on March 16th and 17th at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here.…
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Mazon Monday #206: Pseudomariopteris cordato-ovata
This is Mazon Monday post #206. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. We are looking at another rare Mazon Creek plant fossil, Pseudomariopteris cordato-ovata, which is thought to have grown vine-like. It belongs to the callistophytalean pteridosperms, a group of small, scrambling to climbing forms (Krings and Kerp, 2000). Complete pinnae…
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2024 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #5!
This is the preview post #5 for the 2024 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2024 will be held on March 16th and 17th at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here.…
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Fossil Friday #202: Pecopteris fontainei
This is Mazon Monday post #202. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! This week’s Fossil Friday is a beautiful Pecopteris fontainei. P. fontainei is a tree fern from the Mazon Creek fossil deposit. P. fontainei was named by Leo Lesquereux in 1889. Lesquereux worked with a multiple state geologic surveys, eventually…
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Mazon Monday #205: Cyathocarpus hemitelioides
This is Mazon Monday post #205. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Cyathocarpus hemitelioides is one of the rarer ferns from the Mazon Creek biota. C. hemitelioides was named in 1834 by Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart (1801 – 1876), who was a French paleontologist, considered by many to be the father of paleobotany.…
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2024 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #3!
This is the preview post #3 for the 2024 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2024 will be held on March 16th and 17th at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here.…
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Fossil Friday #201: Crenulopteris acadica
This is Mazon Monday post #201. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! We have a nice Crenulopteris acadica (see Mazon Monday #115) for today’s Fossil Friday. Sometimes, they don’t come out of the freeze/thaw in one piece. Unfortunately, this one needed a little repair. It’s not as obvious from the fossil…
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Mazon Monday #204: Caulopteris sp.
This is Mazon Monday post #204. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Caulopteris sp. are the branch scars of the tree fern Psaronius. Psaronius is an extinct genus of marattialean tree fern. The genus Psaronius is used to describe both the tree trunk and the whole plant. Psaronius tree fern fossils…
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Fossil Friday #200: Peachocaris strongi
If you thought, “Oh… another Mazon Creek fossil for Fossil Friday”… You’d be wrong. This special little fossil shrimp is Peachocaris strongi. It hails from the old Astoria locality in western Illinois. Fossils from Astoria came from the Sunspot Mine. The locality was known for shrimp fossils, which were very common. The deposit features the…
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2024 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #1!
This is the preview post #1 for the 2024 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2024 will be held on March 16th and 17th at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here.…
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Mazon Monday #203: Creature Corner – Fossil Jackpot
Andy Hay was a long time ESCONI member. He joined in 1976 and was a member to the very end. For many years, he wrote the Creature Corner column for the ESCONI newsletter. Many of those articles were compiled into the Creature Corner book, published in 2001. Unfortunately, his April 1994 “Fossil Jackpot” was not…
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Fossil Friday #199: Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri
This is Mazon Monday post #199. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! We have a nice Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri from the Mazon Creek fossil deposit for this week’s Fossil Friday. M. scheuchzeri is a seed fern (Pteridospermatophyta), which is a group of plants that went extinct during the late Cretaceous Period. They…
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Mazon Monday #202: Lepidostrobus
This is Mazon Monday post #202. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Lepidostrobus is a cone from lepidodendron tree. It was named in 1828 by Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart (1801 – 1876), who was a French paleontologist, considered by many to be the father of paleobotany. He also named Lepidostrobophyllum which are the…
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Fossil Friday #198: Smithixerxes juliarum
This is Mazon Monday post #198. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! We have a very rare little gem from Mazon Creek for our Fossil Friday this week. Smithixerxes juliarum is one of the rarest of Mazon Creek animals. It belongs to a group of extinct arthropods called the euthycarcinoids. They…
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Mazon Monday #201: Annularia latifolia
This is Mazon Monday post #201. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Annularia latifolia is one of the rarer forms of Annularia. It was named in 1862 by John William Dawson (1820-1899), a Canadian geologist. He was a professor of Geology at McGill University in Montreal. He described fossil plants from…
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Fossil Friday #197: Odontopteris subcuneata from Mazon Creek
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #19t. 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 seed…
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Throwback Thursday #198: My Very First Fossil
This is Throwback Thursday #198. 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! Does anyone know a Tim Mistele (Histele?) who would have been 9 in November 1973? We have a…
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Mazon Monday #200: Field Trip to Pit 11 on April 2nd, 1995
This is Mazon Monday post #200. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Just to whet your appetite for collecting Pit 11 in March, here’s a little look back at a field trip to Pit 11 on April 2nd, 1995. Here is the announcement. There was a trip to Goose Lake Prairie…
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Sad News – Long-time member Joan Bledig has passed away
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of one of our most devoted members in the club family. Joan Bledig was known to many of us as a friend, a fossil enthusiast, and a hard-working collaborator on many ESCONI projects including the most recent Mazon Creek books. She was present at nearly…
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Fossil Friday #196: Calamostachys from Mazon Creek
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #196. 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 have another Mazon Creek plant…
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41st Mid-Continent Paleobotanical Colloquium 2024 (MPC) at the Field Museum April 12-14, 2024
The Field Museum in Chicago is hosting the 41st Mid-Continent Paleobotanical Colloquium 2024 (MPC) from April 12th to 14th. Details can be found on Fabiany Herrera’s PaleoLab website. 41st Mid-Continent Paleobotanical Colloquium 2024 (MPC) & Sir Peter Crane’s 70th Birthday Symposium April 12-14, 2024 – Field Museum Chicago, IL Important Deadlines Registration: February 28th, 2024,…
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Mazon Monday #199: The Enigmatic Tully Monster (or the Lesser Orm of Mazon Creek)
This is Mazon Monday post #199. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Today, we a have strange, enigmatic tale of the Tully Monster. It’s a tale of wonder…. of wonder why it was written and can this be real? In 1969, the book “The Great Orm of Loch Ness: A Practical…
