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PBS Eons: Could You Survive the Cambrian Explosion?
Read more: PBS Eons: Could You Survive the Cambrian Explosion?There's a new episode of PBS Eons. This one discusses whether you could survive in the Cambrian Period, some 500 million years ago. What would you eat? Could you breathe? In the ocean, the Cambrian Period was one of startling evolutionary innovations, but on land, it was barren, with no vegetation of any kind. In this strange world before plants made their way onto land…could you survive?
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Fossil Friday #235: Alethopteris serlii from the Field Museum
Read more: Fossil Friday #235: Alethopteris serlii from the Field MuseumThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #235. 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’s fossil, we have a very large and gorgeous Alethopteris serlii. This seed fern was on display at the recent ESCONI Mazon Creek Fossil Day in Coal City on October 12th, 2024. This specimen is part of the Paleobotany Collection at the Field Museum. I hope you made it…
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Throwback Thursday #236: Only a Rock
Read more: Throwback Thursday #236: Only a RockThis is Throwback Thursday #236. 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! “Only a Rock” is a poem that appeared in the July 1964 edition of the ESCONI newsletter. The poem was written by Alice French of the Flint Rock & Gem Club in Clio, Michigan, which is near Flint. It’s good to see that the Flint Rock & Gem Club is alive and well as they just had their annual show in September 2024.…
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Happy National Fossil Day – 2024
Read more: Happy National Fossil Day – 2024Many places are holding special events. The Field Museum has a special day and it’s a free admission day! Come on out! Join us for National Fossil Day, an annual celebration initiated by the National Park Service, designed to highlight the value of paleontology and the importance of preserving fossils for future generations. Meet scientists, see rarely displayed items from our collections, and take part in hands-on activities, all while spending the day exploring our world famous fossils including SUE the T. rex and the Chicago Archaeopteryx! The Field Museum is free on Wednesdays for Illinois Residents.
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Reminder: MAPS EXPO 2024 – October 18th-20th, 2024 in Springfield, IL
Read more: Reminder: MAPS EXPO 2024 – October 18th-20th, 2024 in Springfield, ILEXPO 2024 October 18-20, 2024 Hours: 9am-5pm Fri, 8am-5pm Sat, 8am-3pm Sun The Orr Building on the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, IL. The keynote topic for EXPO 2024 is The Carboniferous Period. Keynote Speaker: Joe Devera – “Late Mississippian Vertebrate Fossils from the Buncimbe Red Bed, Southern Illinois” EXPO Info 2024 Newsletter
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Mazon Monday #238: Alethopteris lesquereuxii
Read more: Mazon Monday #238: Alethopteris lesquereuxiiThis is Mazon Monday post #238. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Alethopteris lesquereuxii was originally named Callipteridium mansfieldi by Leo Lesquereux in 1879. C. mansfieldi was named for the Hon. Ira Franklin Mansfield, who was a politician and an extensive owner of coal mining interest in the middle to late 1800s in the area of Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Mansfield assembled a significant collection of euryperids from the Darlington coal bed. In the 1880s, his his collection was donated to Penn State. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1878. C. mansfieldi was reclassified…
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Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller review – a marvel of narrative non-fiction
Read more: Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller review – a marvel of narrative non-fictionThe Guardian has a review of one of my favorite books of the last few years. Lulu Miller’s “Why Fish Don’t Exist” is about a few thing all woven together. It’s first a biography of David Starr Jordan, who was the founding president of Stanford University. He was a prodiguous ichthyologist whose team classified around a fifth of all the fish known today. Add in the love story, a philosophical discussion of life (what is a fish?!?), a murder mystery at the end, and you have a book that is hard to put down! Miller, an American science journalist, first…
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PBS Eons: How the Himalayas Changed the World
Read more: PBS Eons: How the Himalayas Changed the WorldThere's a new episode of PBS Eons. This one explains how the Himalayan orogeny has affected the whole Earth over the last 50 million years. The rise of the Himalayas affected more than just the immediate area. Turns out, we may have them to thank for everything from the rise of giant flightless birds in Madagascar; to the disappearance of plants from Antarctica; to the expansion of the great grasslands of North America, and more.
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Fossil Friday #234: Neuropteris ovata from the Mazon River
Read more: Fossil Friday #234: Neuropteris ovata from the Mazon RiverThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #234. 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’s fossil is a sweet little Neuropteris ovata from the famous lower beds of the Mazon River. N. ovata was a seed fern, which was a group of seed bearing plants that look very similar to true ferns. They were most common during the Carboniferous when they made up part of the…
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Throwback Thursday #235: Field Trip to Rosiclare, IL for Fluorite
Read more: Throwback Thursday #235: Field Trip to Rosiclare, IL for FluoriteThis is Throwback Thursday #235. 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! Have you heard of the Fluorspar Festival? It’s held in Rosiclare, IL on the first weekend of October every year… 2024 was the Diamond Celebration! That’s 60 years! The Fluorspar Festival celebrates the history of fluorite mining in Hardin County, IL. There’s even the American Fluorite Museum in Rosiclare, IL. For many years, ESCONI organized field trips to the Rosiclare, IL area for…
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ESCONI October 2024 General Meeting – October 11th, 2024 – “Hoyo Negro: A Spectacular Natural Trap on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula”
Read more: ESCONI October 2024 General Meeting – October 11th, 2024 – “Hoyo Negro: A Spectacular Natural Trap on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula”The ESCONI October 2024 General Meeting will be held on October 11th, 2024 at 8:00 via Zoom. The topic of the meeting is “Hoyo Negro: A Spectacular Natural Trap on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula”. It will be presented by Jim Chatters, who has studied human history here in the Americas for many years. Here is an article about the discovery of a 13,000 year old human found in Hoyo Negro. Hoyo Negra is a submerged late Pleistocene cave site in Quintana Roo, Mexico. The cenotes and underwater cave systems of the Yucatan Peninsula are emerging as one of the most promising…
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ESCONI Mazon Creek Fossil Day – October 12th, 2024 in Coal City
Read more: ESCONI Mazon Creek Fossil Day – October 12th, 2024 in Coal CityESCONI will be holding the 2024 Mazon Creek Fossil Day on October 12th, 2024 from 10 AM to 3 PM at the Coal City Public Library. Please come out and bring your Mazon Creek fossils. There will displays of Mazon Creek fossils and knowledgeable people who can identify your fossils. Coal City Public Library85 N. Garfield St.Coal City, ILMain Meeting Room Lecture on Mazon Creek Fossils 1 PM Come on out for another great and informative day!
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Mazon Monday #237: Danville Field Trip Report for Fall 2024
Read more: Mazon Monday #237: Danville Field Trip Report for Fall 2024This is Mazon Monday post #237. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Fortunately, the threat of bad weather never materialized and we enjoyed a very nice day collecting fossils from a spoil pile just outside Danville, IL on September 28th, 2024. This was our second trip to the spoil pile in 2024. We’ve been visiting it twice a year since 2021. By the shape of the hill, it’s seen quite a bit of work since spring. That exposed quite a few concretions. Even though they are fairly ufgly, the concretions from this site can contain fossils. …
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Divers in Mexico’s Underwater Caves Get a Glimpse of Rarely Seen Artifacts, Fossils and Human Remains
Read more: Divers in Mexico’s Underwater Caves Get a Glimpse of Rarely Seen Artifacts, Fossils and Human RemainsSmithsonian Magazine has an article about the underwater caves of Mexico. They call them cenotes and these particular caves are located in the Yucatán Peninsula. They date to a few million years ago and preserved remnants of the Mayan culture and sometime fossils of extinct animals. The underwater caves of the Yucatán Peninsula are a window to the distant past. Through two million years and over multiple glaciation cycles, these caves have been transformed. When the sea level was high, the caves flooded, and their reach expanded. During the ice ages, the caves dried out as the sea level dropped,…
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PBS Eons: Could You Survive The Devonian Period? (with Hank Green!)
Read more: PBS Eons: Could You Survive The Devonian Period? (with Hank Green!)PBS Eons has a new episode. This one dsicusses whether humas could survive in the Devonian Period. By the end of the Devonian Period, the land had exploded with plant life and ancient invertebrates. There was also Tiktaalik – one of the first known vertebrates able and willing to move from the water to land. Our distant relative figured out how to survive in this dramatically different environment, can you?
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Fossil Friday #233: Diplazites unita
Read more: Fossil Friday #233: Diplazites unitaThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #233. 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! Diplazites unita is one of the most common ferns found in the Mazon Creek deposit. D. unita has had a bit of a tortured past with quite a few different names over the years. It was originally named Pecopteris unita by Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart (1801-1876) in 1836. Brongniart is considered by many to be…
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Throwback Thursday #234: Looking Back at ESCONI for October 2024
Read more: Throwback Thursday #234: Looking Back at ESCONI for October 2024This is Throwback Thursday #234. 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! ——————————————————————————————- 25 Years Ago – October 1999 50 Years Ago – October 1974 70 Years Ago – October 1954
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ESCONI October 2024 Mineralogy Study Group Meeting – October 5th, 2024 – “Geodes from Around the World”
Read more: ESCONI October 2024 Mineralogy Study Group Meeting – October 5th, 2024 – “Geodes from Around the World”Just a reminder of our new Mineralogy Study Group’s first meeting later this week! Please join us for a great presentation about geodes! All are welcome – bring family and friends! They do not have to be ESCONI members to attend meetings. MINERALOGY STUDY GROUP MEETING Saturday, October 5, 2024 – 7:30 PM College of DuPage Technical Education Center (TEC Building) Map Room 1038B Program: “Geodes from Around the World” By: Dave Carlson Illinois is not a great place for mineral collecting, but it has geodes! In this program, I’ll talk about geodes from Illinois and many other places around the world including…
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ESCONI Events for October 2024
Read more: ESCONI Events for October 2024Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings! Sat, Oct 5th ESCONI Mineralogy Study Group – 7:30 PM at College of DuPage Room TEC 1038B – Topic “Geodes from Around the World” by Dave Carlson More details soon! Fri, Oct 11th ESCONI General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom – Topic: “Hoyo Negro: A Spectacular Natural Trap on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula” by Jim Chatters Zoom link Sat, Oct 12th ESCONI Mazon Creek Fossil Day – Coal City, IL Details can be found here. Sat, Oct 18th – 20th M.A.P.S. National Fossil Exposition 2024 in Springfield, IL Details…
ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show
Most Recent Post
- Ancient bees found nesting inside fossil bones in rare cave discovery
Science Daily has a post about a recent paper that looked at novel bee nesting behavior. Researchers working on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola discovered a rare and unusual fossil interaction in a cave, ancient bees used fossilized bones as nesting sites.
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Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!
| Friday, April 10th | General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom. Jessica Hull will present “Life in the Devonian Period, The Age of Fishes.” |
| Saturday, April 11th | Junior Study Group Meeting – 2:00 PM, in person at the College of DuPage Technical Education Center (TEC) Building – Room 1038A (Map). Katherine Howard will present on Sand and Sediment Collecting. Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, gallowayscottf@gmail.com. |
| Saturday, April 18th | Paleontology Study Group – 7:30 PM via Zoom and in person at the College of DuPage, TEC, Room 1038B (Map). Keith Robitschek will present “Digging the Marl of the Lance Formation.” |
| Friday, April 24th | MAPS Expo XLVII – Springfield, IL. |
| Saturday, April 25th | MAPS Expo XLVII – Springfield, IL. |
| Sunday, April 26th | MAPS Expo XLVII – Springfield, IL. |
| No meeting this month | Mineralogy Study Group |