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Throwback Thursday #124: Resolution Lost
Read more: Throwback Thursday #124: Resolution LostThis is Throwback Thursday #124. 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! A poem from December 1970 is up for this week’s Throwback Thursday. It’s called “Resolution Lost”. It comes via a few other newsletters – “The Rockpile” newsletter for Midwest Mineralogical & Lapidary Society and “Crystal Cluster” newsletter for the Desplaines Valley Geological Society. There doesn’t seem to be any information about Blythe Best and The Water Rock. It’s easy to identify with the…
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TRIP FULL!: ESCONI Field Trip to Danville, IL – Saturday, September 17th, 2022
Read more: TRIP FULL!: ESCONI Field Trip to Danville, IL – Saturday, September 17th, 2022This field trip is full. We are taking names for the waiting list. Danville Field Trip Rules Sept 17, 2022 An ESCONI field trip to the Danville Shale Pile for Pennsylvanian fossils is scheduled for Sept 17, 2022 starting at 10 AM. This is on private property and there is an attendance limit of 25 people. The gate will be secured once we are in and locked when we leave. Plan on being off the hill at 3 PM to give time for specimen identification and pictures. You must register to go on this trip. See rule 6 below for…
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All the better to better eat you with: Dinosaurs evolved different eye socket shapes to allow stronger bites
Read more: All the better to better eat you with: Dinosaurs evolved different eye socket shapes to allow stronger bitesPhys.org has a story about the strength of a T-rex bite. A new study, published in the journal Communications Biology, looked at the shape of eye sockets to determine how it affected bite force. The skulls of about 500 different dinosaurs were analyzed and the researchers found that a circular eye socket was prone to higher stresses than the oval or “figure eight” shape of some top predators. Large dinosaur predators, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, evolved different shapes of eye sockets to better deal with high bite forces, new research has shown. While in many animals—and most dinosaurs—the eye socket…
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Mazon Monday #125: Lycopodites meekii
Read more: Mazon Monday #125: Lycopodites meekiiThis is Mazon Monday post #125. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– Lycopodites meekii are foliaged lycophyte twigs. They were described in 1870 by Leo Lesquereux. L. meekii is probably the terminal branches of Bothrodendren minutifolium or a similar plant. These plants were herbaceous resembling the modern day Lycopodium, a club moss, having needle shaped leaves on small branches. They are related to Lepidodendron also known as scale trees. This group of extinct plants make up a significant portion of the plant matter in the Carboniferous coal deposits of Illinois. L. meekii appears on page 48…
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Mammal ancestor looked like a chubby lizard with a tiny head and had a hippo-like lifestyle
Read more: Mammal ancestor looked like a chubby lizard with a tiny head and had a hippo-like lifestyleLive Science has a article about an mammal ancestor. Lalieudorhynchus gandi lived about 265 million years ago in what is now the Lodève Basin in southern France. At that time, southern France was part of northeastern Pangaea. Mammals had not evolved as a group yet. L. gandi was described in a paper in the journal Paleo Vertebrata. Fossils of the unusual animal were first discovered in 2001 in the Lodève Basin in southern France, by study co-author and paleontologist Jörg Schneider, a professor in the Department of Paleontology and Stratigraphy at the University of Freiberg in Germany, and doctoral candidate Frank…
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PBS Eons: Did An Ancient Pathogen Reshape Our Cells?
Read more: PBS Eons: Did An Ancient Pathogen Reshape Our Cells?PBS Eons has a new episode over on Youtube. This one is about the evolution of mammals and how we came to not have alpga-gal. There is one – and only one – group of mammals that doesn’t have alpha-gal: the catarrhine primates, which are the monkeys of Africa and Asia, the apes, and us.
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Fossil Friday #121: Alethopteris from Danville
Read more: Fossil Friday #121: Alethopteris from DanvilleThis is “Fossil Friday” post #121. 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! This week’s Fossil Friday post is an Alethopteris serlii from the ESCONI Danville spoil pile field trips. That spoil pile dates to the early 1900’s. The Dering Coal Company opened the mine to exploit the Herrin No. 6 coal. The shale in the spoil pile consists of mostly Energy Shale, which is about…
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Throwback Thursday #123: Historical Documents
Read more: Throwback Thursday #123: Historical DocumentsThis is Throwback Thursday #123. 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! In the past, we have highlighted historically important documents related to ESCONI and/or Mazon Creek. We posted about Langford book inscriptions in Mazon Monday #18, including books owned by John McLuckie, William Allaway, and Jim Konecny. All were influential people in ESCONI history. McLuckie and his wife had a significant fossil collection that made its way to the Smithsonian. Allaway was the founding…
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TRIP FULL!: ESCONI Field Trip to Braceville, IL for Mazon Creek Fossils – Saturday, September 10th and Sunday September 11th, 2022
Read more: TRIP FULL!: ESCONI Field Trip to Braceville, IL for Mazon Creek Fossils – Saturday, September 10th and Sunday September 11th, 2022This field trip is full. We are taking names for the waiting list. Braceville Field Trip Rules – Sept 2022 The ESCONI field trips to Braceville for Mazon Creek fossils are set for Sept 10 and 11, 2022 from 9 AM to 3 PM. You can attend one or the other, but not both days. There is an attendance limit of 50 people each day. You must register to go on this trip. See rule 6 below for instructions. This is the only way to register. If you are sick, have any symptoms of Covid-19 or have recently tested positive,…
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Europe’s last pandas were giant weaklings who couldn’t even eat bamboo
Read more: Europe’s last pandas were giant weaklings who couldn’t even eat bambooLiveScience has a story about European pandas. A new species of panda from Bulgaria called Agriarctos nikolovi lived about 10 million years ago. The fossil teeth show it had a vegetarian diet and would likely have struggled to eat bambo which is the main food of modern giant pandas, Ailuropoda melanoleuca. The research was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. A pair of fossil teeth in a museum collection recently revealed when pandas last roamed Europe. When researchers examined the teeth, which had been kept in storage for around 40 years, they discovered that the fossils belonged to a…
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Mazon Monday #124: Lepidostrobophyllum majus
Read more: Mazon Monday #124: Lepidostrobophyllum majusThis is Mazon Monday post #124. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– Lepidostrobophyllum majus is a cone bract. In modern plants, the woody pieces of a pine cone are the bracts. L. majus are the largest species found in the Mazon Creek biota. The cones these bracts were part of were Lepidodendron or Sigillaria, which were It was described way back in 1829 by Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart (1701-1876), who was a French paleontologist, considered by many to be the father of paleobotany. Lepidostrobophyllum majus appears on page 34 of “A Comprehensive Guide to the Fossil Flora…
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New Mexico mammoths among best evidence for early humans in North America
Read more: New Mexico mammoths among best evidence for early humans in North AmericaPhys.org has a story about early humans in North America. It’s long been thought that humans arrived in North America about 12,000 maybe 15000 years ago. There has been some spare evidence of a much earlier arrival, which was often played off as incorrect dating or just incorrect evidence. Now a team from the University of Texas at Austin has published a research that would push the date of arrive to at least 37,000 years ago! The paper appeared in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. About 37,000 years ago, a mother mammoth and her calf met their end…
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PBS Eons: Why Does Caffeine Exist?
Read more: PBS Eons: Why Does Caffeine Exist?PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the origins of caffeine and why it evolved. Today, billions of people around the world start their day with caffeine. But how and why did the ability to produce this molecule independently evolve in multiple, distantly-related lineages of flowering plants, again and again?
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Fossil Friday #120: Kallidecthes richardsoni
Read more: Fossil Friday #120: Kallidecthes richardsoniThis is “Fossil Friday” post #120. 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! Got some cocktail sauce? For this week’s Fossil Friday, we have a large delicious Kallidecthes richardsoni shrimp from Pit 11. This one hails from Pit 11. K. richardsoni is named for Dr. Eugene Richardson Jr., Curator of Fossil Invertebrates at the Field Museum from the 1947 until 1983. It was described by Frederick…
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Throwback Thursday #122: Looking Back at ESCONI for August 2022
Read more: Throwback Thursday #122: Looking Back at ESCONI for August 2022This is Throwback Thursday #122. 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 – August 1997 50 Years Ago – August 1972 70 Years Ago – August 1952
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Ticks, Ticks, Ticks, Ticks, Ticks 2022!
Read more: Ticks, Ticks, Ticks, Ticks, Ticks 2022!It may be mid-summer, but the risk of tick bites and tick borne diseases is still among us. Here are some links to educate yourself against any potential problems. It’s been warm and late spring/early summer is the peak of tick season. With the nice weather, you will probably be spending more time outside looking for fossils, minerals, etc. in the woods, fields, and quarries. Or at least, that’s what we hope… after all, this is the ESCONI website. One creature you may encounter is a tick. Ticks are arthropods, that unfortunately are vectors for a number of serious diseases. …
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Trilobite Tuesday #42: Trilobites’ growth may have resembled that of modern marine crustaceans
Read more: Trilobite Tuesday #42: Trilobites’ growth may have resembled that of modern marine crustaceansPhys.org has a story about trilobite growth. Research published in the journal Paleobiology shows that trilobites grew in a fashion similar to modern extant crustaceans. Data for the study came from exceptionally preserved trilobites from “Beechers Trilobite Bed” in upstate New York. For more information about “Beecher’s Trilobite Bed”, have a look at Trilobite Tuesday #5. In a paper published in the journal Paleobiology, researchers from the University of British Columbia and Uppsala University show that the Ordovician trilobite Triarthrus eatoni, some 450 million years ago, reached a length of just above 4 cm in about 10 years, with a growth…
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Mazon Monday #123: Annularia sphenophylloides
Read more: Mazon Monday #123: Annularia sphenophylloidesThis is Mazon Monday post #123. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– Annularia is the extinct form genera given to the leaves of Calamites. Annularia sphenophylloides is a smaller variety. It was described in 1837 by August von Gutbier (1798-1866), a German paleontologist who described many Carboniferous plants from deposits in and around Germany. His name is also associated with various Permian animals like Parasaurus geintzi, which is an extinct species of pareiasaur, a plant eating parareptile. A. sphenophylloides was featured in Fossil Friday #119. Annularia sphenophylloides appears on Page 63 of “A Comprehensive Guide to…
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Field Museum: Meet a Scientist: Chicago Fossils August 5th, 2022
Read more: Field Museum: Meet a Scientist: Chicago Fossils August 5th, 2022The Field Museum’s “Meet a Scientist” is looking at “Chicago Fossils” on August 5th, 2022. Learn what you can find on Chicago beaches and in nearby limestone exposures. That 430 million years ago Chicago was covered by a tropical sea with 300 foot tall reefs growing here. The evidence for this is the fossils we find in the rock around Chicago. Join a conversation with Paul Mayer, Fossil Invertebrate Collections Manager, and learn about Chicago fossils and rocks you can find on the beach. Scientists, researchers, and collections managers are behind the scenes every day, uncovering new information and taking care…
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PBS Eons: How Plate Tectonics Transformed Los Angeles
Read more: PBS Eons: How Plate Tectonics Transformed Los AngelesPBS Eons has a new episode over on Youtube. This one is about the geology and paleontology of Los Angeles. Despite the profound changes we’ve made here in recent history, the epic saga of Los Angeles' natural history is still visible – and even striking – if you know where and how to look for it.
ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show
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- Trilobite Tuesday #50: Penn Dixie: Dig With the Experts 2026 – June 13th and 14th, 2026
The Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Center are holding their annual “Dig With the Experts” event on June 13th and 14th, 2026. Details can be found be found on their website. We’ve featured a few trilobites from Penn Dixie for Fossil Friday. I went there a few years ago and had a great time. If you love trilobites, don’t miss this event!
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Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings!
| Friday, May 2nd | Field Trip to Danville, IL. Details here. |
| Friday, May 8th | General Meeting – 8:00 PM via Zoom. Thomas Loebel will present “Seeing Beneath the Ground: Geophysics and Archaeological Explorations in Illinois”. |
| Saturday, May 9th | Junior Study Group Meeting – 2:00 PM, in person at the College of DuPage Technical Education Center (TEC) Building – Room 1038A (Map). “The Rock Cycle and Sedimentation” Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, gallowayscottf@gmail.com. |
| Saturday, May 16th | Paleontology Study Group – 7:30 PM via Zoom. John Catalani will present “An Ordovician Konzentrat Lagerstätte: The Dixon Mifflin Residuum Fauna”. |
| Saturday, May 23rd | CGMA Show, Kane County Fairgrounds |
| Sunday, May 24th | CGMA Show, Kane County Fairgrounds |
| Saturday, May 30th | Field Trip to Braceville, IL. Details here. |
| Sunday, May 31st | Field Trip to Braceville, IL. Details here. |
| No meeting this month | Mineralogy Study Group |