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ESCONI Events March 2023
Read more: ESCONI Events March 2023Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings! Sat, Mar 18th 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show – 10 AM to 5 PM at the DuPage County Fairgrounds Details are here! Sun, Mar 19th 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show – 10 AM to 4 PM at the DuPage County Fairgrounds Details are here! ESCONI General Meeting None due to the annual show… see you next month! ESCONI Junior Meeting None due to the annual show… see you next month! ESCONI Paleontology Study Group Meeting None due to the annual show… see…
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ESCONI at the STEAM Night at Brookdale Elementary School in Naperville, Illinois
Read more: ESCONI at the STEAM Night at Brookdale Elementary School in Naperville, IllinoisOn Friday, February 24th, 2023, ESCONI participated in the STEAM Night held a Brookdale Elementary School in Naperville, IL. ESCONI members Keith Robitschek, Donald Cronauer, Rich and Heidi Holm were on hand to answer questions about paleontology, geology. and ESCONI. It was a well attended event. This was the first in person STEAM night, since before 2020. We had fossils and minerals on display. We had a spinner to give away fossil and mineral specimens. The booth next to us from Phillips Park Zoo in Aurora had a skink and a turtle, which are native to the area.
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PBS Eons: Is This A Theropod? A Sauropod? A Third Thing?
Read more: PBS Eons: Is This A Theropod? A Sauropod? A Third Thing?PBS Eons has a new episode on Youtube. This one is about therizinosaurs and where they fit into the dinosaur family tree. How the therizinosaurs lived and evolved ended up being just as weird as their mixed-up anatomy.
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Fossil Friday #149: Rhaphidiophorus hystrix
Read more: Fossil Friday #149: Rhaphidiophorus hystrixThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #149. 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 gorgeous Mazon Creek worm fossil for your enjoyment today! It’s a Rhaphidiophorus hystrix, which was known informally as the “Oliver Hardy” worm by old-time collectors. It was described in 1979 by Ida Thompson in her epic worm paper “Errant polychaetes (Annelida) from the Pennsylvanian Essex fauna of northern Illinois”,…
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Throwback Thursday #150: History of Coal City and Surrounding Areas
Read more: Throwback Thursday #150: History of Coal City and Surrounding AreasThis is Throwback Thursday #150. 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! On Tuesday, February 28th, 2023, local historian Michele Micetich is speaking at the Coal City Library about the history of Coal City and the surrounding area. She manages the Carbon Hill School Museum in Carbon Hill, IL. Her presentations are as informative as they are interesting. No one knows more about the history of the area than Michele! Visit the School Museum! There’s…
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The Search for the Perfect Stone
Read more: The Search for the Perfect StoneThe New Yorker has a story about the annual Tuscon Gem and Mineral Show. The show has been held each winter since 1955. If you can’t find it there, you can’t find it anywhere! For a few weeks every winter, Tucson briefly goes rock crazy. In 1955, local gem-and-mineral enthusiasts began hosting a get-together, an event that’s since become something much more commercial, and much more overwhelming. This year, there were forty shows throughout the city, each of them a mazelike complex of dozens or hundreds of venders, drawing tens of thousands of visitors in total. Browsing one afternoon, I…
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2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #6!
Read more: 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #6!This is the preview post #6 for the 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2023 will be held on March 18th and 19th at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here. Time for another preview for the 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show. Expect quite a few more! This time we have a gorgeous Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri for the live auction. We spotlighted this species back in Mazon Monday #39. It’s a seed fern named for Johann Jakob…
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Mazon Monday #152: Crenulopteris subcrenulata
Read more: Mazon Monday #152: Crenulopteris subcrenulataThis is Mazon Monday post #152. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Crenulopteris subcrenulata is somewhat common in Mazon Creek fossil deposit. It has been misunderstood and misidentified for many years, with a long list of classifications where is included with other distinct species due to the variation in its growth forms. It has at times been mistaken for Pecopteris (Cyathocarpus) arborescens (arborea), Pecopteris (Cyathocarpus) hemitelioides, and Pecopteris (Diplazites) unita. It was first described by Leo Lesquereux in 1866 as Alethopteris crenulata in his “Report on the Fossil Plants of Illinois”. C. subcrenulata appears on pages 97…
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PBS Eons: These Fossils Were Supposed To Be Impossible
Read more: PBS Eons: These Fossils Were Supposed To Be ImpossiblePBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the earliest animals, which evolved during a period of the Pre-Cambrian called the Ediacaran. Hidden in rocks once thought too old to contain complex life we may have found the animal kingdom’s oldest known predator.
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ESCONI Paleontology Meeting Saturday, February 18th, 2023 at 7:30 PM Hybrid – “Mazon Creek”
Read more: ESCONI Paleontology Meeting Saturday, February 18th, 2023 at 7:30 PM Hybrid – “Mazon Creek”The February Paleontology Study Group Meeting is tonight… Saturday, February 18th, 2023 at 7:30 PM. It’s a hybrid meeting, Zoom details are below. If you’d like to come out to the College of DuPage, please bring some of you favorite specimens. Also, bring anything you’d like to have identified. ESCONI President Keith Robitschek is going to do a presentation on some of the collecting areas in Pit 11. We hope to see you there! DATE/TIME: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2023, 7:30PM TOPIC: COLLECTING MAZON CREEK FOSSILS PRESENTED BY: KEITH ROBITSCHEK, ESCONI President IN-PERSON: COLLEGE OF DUPAGE, Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) Bring in your specimens…
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Fossil Friday #148: Phareodus encaustus
Read more: Fossil Friday #148: Phareodus encaustusThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #148. 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 a very nice Phareodus encaustus from ESCONI President Keith Robitschek. He found this beautiful fossil in the summer of 2020 at American Fossil Quarry in Kemmerer, Wyoming. American Fossil lets has a large exposure of the Green River Formation, which dates to the Eocene Epoch about 52 million years…
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Throwback Thursday #149: Dues Are Due… From the Past!
Read more: Throwback Thursday #149: Dues Are Due… From the Past!This is Throwback Thursday #149. 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 paid your 2023 ESCONI dues? I know I have to pay mine! Please get them in, you can use our PayPal link on the website. It makes it very easy! ESCONI was more creative in the past when they sent out the Dues requests. Here is a “Dues are Due” poem from February 1973. DUES ARE DUE Dues are Due and what…
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A Historic Discovery: Archaeologists Uncover Oldest Known Projectile Points in the Americas
Read more: A Historic Discovery: Archaeologists Uncover Oldest Known Projectile Points in the AmericasSciTechDaily has a story about some Oregon State University archaeologists that have found the oldest projectile points in North America. The researchers were working at a site known as Cooper’s Ferry. The points have been dated to about 15,700 years, which is about 3,000 years older than Clovis points found throughout North America. The research was published in the journal Science Advances. “From a scientific point of view, these discoveries add very important details about what the archaeological record of the earliest peoples of the Americas looks like,” said Loren Davis, an anthropology professor at OSU and head of the…
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2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #5!
Read more: 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show – Preview #5!This is the preview post #5 for the 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show Live Auction. The ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show for 2023 will be held on March 18th and 19th at the DuPage Fairgrounds in Wheaton, IL, which is the same location as last year. All details can be found here. Time for another preview for the 2023 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show. Expect quite a few more! Back to the minerals… This is a chunk Colemanite from Death Valley. Colemanite is a borate mineral found in evaporite deposits. This particular specimen comes from the…
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Mazon Monday #151: PBS Eons, History’s Most Powerful Plants
Read more: Mazon Monday #151: PBS Eons, History’s Most Powerful PlantsThis is Mazon Monday post #151. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. PBS Eons has another interesting Mazon Creek related video. This one was also on Facebook, but everyone can enjoy it with the link below.
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Happy Darwin Day 2023!
Read more: Happy Darwin Day 2023!Happy Darwin Day 2023! Today is Charles Darwin’s 213th birthday. Head on over to the International Darwin Day website. Here is what it’s about.. International Darwin Day on February 12th will inspire people throughout the globe to reflect and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in Charles Darwin. It will be a day of celebration, activism, and international cooperation for the advancement of science, education, and human well-being. Local and state governments will close in commemoration of the Day, and organizations and businesses will celebrate by engaging in community…
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NPR: The do’s and don’ts of amateur fossil hunting
Read more: NPR: The do’s and don’ts of amateur fossil huntingWAMU 88.5 American Univerity Radio has an interesting program about fossil hunting. It features a discussion with paleontologist Steven Brusatte and science writer Riley Black. The audio can be found here. Fossil hunting has been popular for ages. Maybe you’ve stumbled upon ancient remains yourself, whether on a walk on the beach or on a guided fossil-hunting tour. And amateur fossil hunters contribute to scientific discoveries all the time. Back in the gold rush in the 19th century, countless fossils and mummified prehistoric remains were discovered in Alaska. And a more recent “bone rush” speaks to how fossil hunting continues to be commercialized, something…
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Fossil Friday #147: Annularia from Danville
Read more: Fossil Friday #147: Annularia from DanvilleThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #147. 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! Had a large Annularia from Danville open up this past weekend. The concretion is about 4 inches across. It has a fern (Crenulopteris?) and a ghostly Lepidostrobophyllum on the outside. On the inside is a beautiful Annularia. The Danville fossils are a few million years younger than Mazon Creek, but many of…
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Throwback Thursday #148: Johnny Cash and Dinosaurs?!? Yes!
Read more: Throwback Thursday #148: Johnny Cash and Dinosaurs?!? Yes!This is Throwback Thursday #148. 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! OK, so who knew that Johnny Cash had a dinosaur song? Written by Johnny and his wife June, the “Dinosaur Song” was recorded between January 1972 and October 1973. It was released by Columbia Records in 1975 on “The Johnny Cash Children’s Album”. It was later reissued in 2006 through Legacy Recordings. Enjoy! “Dinosaur Song” Dinosaurs lived a long time agoThey were terrible…
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ESCONI February 2023 General Meeting – February 10th, 2023 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “Baby Dinosaurs of the Arctic: Discovery and Research of a Dinosaur Nursery North of the Artic Circle”
Read more: ESCONI February 2023 General Meeting – February 10th, 2023 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “Baby Dinosaurs of the Arctic: Discovery and Research of a Dinosaur Nursery North of the Artic Circle”At our General Meeting (via Zoom) on February 10th, the program “Baby Dinosaurs of the Arctic: Discovery and Research of a Dinosaur Nursery north of the Arctic Circle” will be presented by Dr. Patrick Druckenmiller. Dr. Druckenmiller is Professor of Geology and Director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. He is a vertebrate paleontologist who research encompasses Mesozoic marine reptiles and Alaskan dinosaurs. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in North America and the Arctic, including northern Alaska where he directs excavation of the northernmost dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth. He became the Earth Sciences Curator in…
ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show
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- The Field Museum’s Dinopalooza 2026, Saturday, June 13th, 2026
The Field Museum’s annual paleontology extravaganza “Dinopalooza 2026” is today! Come on out and join the fun!
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Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!
| Friday, June 12th | General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom. Adrienne Stroup of The Field Museum will present “At the Intersection of Art and Science: Outreach in Natural History Museums”. |
| Saturday, June 20th | Paleontology Study Group – 7:30 PM via Zoom. Lincoln Shoemaker will present “Factors controlling the distribution of Late Ordovician – Silurian crinoids.” |
| No meeting this month | Junior Study Group Meeting |
| No meeting this month | Mineralogy Study Group |