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Never-before-seen ammonite muscles revealed in 3D from Jurassic fossil
Read more: Never-before-seen ammonite muscles revealed in 3D from Jurassic fossilPhys.org has a story about an amazing ammonite fossil. The 165 million year old fossil has revealed never-before-seen soft body detail in an ammonite. It was found about 20 years ago in Gloucestershire, UK. Researchers at Cardiff University and Imperial College London, who published their study in the journal Geology, found evidence of muscles and organs by using 3D imaging. The findings add insight into how ammonites lived and are evidence that coleoids, the sub-group of animals containing squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish, might be evolutionarily closer to ammonites than previously thought. Study co-author Dr. Alan Spencer, from Imperial’s Department of…
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Mazon Monday #90: Video for ESCONI December 2021 General Meeting – “The Life and Death of the Herrin Peat Swamp – Whys, Whens, and Hows”
Read more: Mazon Monday #90: Video for ESCONI December 2021 General Meeting – “The Life and Death of the Herrin Peat Swamp – Whys, Whens, and Hows”This is Mazon Monday post #90. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at esconi.info@gmail.com. For December 2021, the presentation by Scott Elrick provided context for the Danville, IL spoil pile fossils. Scott also discussed coal formation in Illinois during the Pennsylvanian. Additionally, he mentioned where the Colchester #2 Coal, associated with Mazon Creek, fits into the paleo-environment of the Pennsylvanian. The speaker at our December 3, 2021 meeting was Scott Elrick, Head of the Coal, Bedrock and Industrial Minerals Section of ISGS. The topic of his talk via Zoom was paleoecology of the Herrin Coal roof shales including…
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PBS Eons: Why the Paleo Diet Couldn’t Save the Neanderthals
Read more: PBS Eons: Why the Paleo Diet Couldn’t Save the NeanderthalsPBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about Neanderthals and their diet and how it ultimately affected their fate. These relatives of ours lived in Eurasia for more than 300,000 years. They were expert toolmakers, using materials like stone, wood, and animal bone. They were also skilled hunters and foragers, and may even have created cave art. So what caused the decline and disappearance of their population? Well, in a way… it could’ve been us. But maybe not in the way you might’ve heard.
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British Teenager Discovers Rare Bronze Age Ax Hoard
Read more: British Teenager Discovers Rare Bronze Age Ax HoardThe Cool Finds column blog at Smithsonian Magazine has a story about the discovery of Bronze Age axes. Milly Hardwick, a 13-year-old from Suffolk, stumbled onto a cache of 65 artifacts dated to around 1300 B.C.E, while on a metal detecting outing. Milly Hardwick was searching for buried treasure in a field in Hertfordshire, England, when her metal detector pinged. The 13-year-old’s father, Colin, joked that she’d found an ax. He was partially right: Hardwick had, in fact, stumbled onto a trove of 65 Bronze Age axes and artifacts dated to around 1300 B.C.E. “I was shocked,” the teenager, who…
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Fossil Friday #86: Mazon Creek Shark Egg Case
Read more: Fossil Friday #86: Mazon Creek Shark Egg CaseThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #86. 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! There are a few species of shark egg cases known from Mazon Creek. Today, we have a somewhat common, but no less beautiful specimen of Palaeoxyris prendelli. Remember, that is common for a Mazon Creek shark egg case fossil. In general, shark egg cases are very rare in the fossil record. P. prendelli…
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Throwback Thursday #88: Looking Back at ESCONI for December 2021
Read more: Throwback Thursday #88: Looking Back at ESCONI for December 2021This is Throwback Thursday #88. 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 – December 1996 50 Years Ago – December 1971 70 Years Ago – December 1951
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Facial reconstruction shows powerful Bronze Age woman’s serene expression and huge earrings
Read more: Facial reconstruction shows powerful Bronze Age woman’s serene expression and huge earringsLive Science has a story about some facial reconstruction performed on a Bronze Age woman’s skull. Researchers in Spain, discovered the remains of the woman in 2014. She was buried with lavish jewelry – including a diadem, beaded necklaces, silver-crafted rings, bracelets, spiral hairpieces and earplugs with spirals, as well as a silver-rimmed drinking pot and silver-handled awl, a tool used to piece textiles. The find was described in the journal Antiquity earlier this year. A “powerful, maybe even frightening” woman buried with a silver diadem in Bronze Age Spain now has a virtually reconstructed face that shows her wearing…
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Video for ESCONI September 2021 General Meeting – “Exploring evolutionary patterns and processes in trilobites”
Read more: Video for ESCONI September 2021 General Meeting – “Exploring evolutionary patterns and processes in trilobites”The speaker at our September 10th general meeting was Dr. Mark Webster from the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. The topic was Cambrian trilobites. Here’s a link to his page at the university: https://geosci.uchicago.edu/people/mark-webster/
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Mazon Monday #89: Jeletzkya douglassae
Read more: Mazon Monday #89: Jeletzkya douglassaeThis is Mazon Monday post #89. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Of all the millions (yes, millions!) of Mazon concretions that have opened over the years, only two specimens of Jeletzkya douglassae are known. That might make it the rarest of species in the Mazon Creek biota. It’s considered to be a squid. Talk about soft bodied animals… its only hard parts are the radula and the pen. For as rare as it is, it has a Wikipedia page! It was described in 1968 by Ralph Gordon Johnson and Eugene S. Richardson, Jr. The description…
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Found in a Candy Tin: One of the First Coins Struck in Colonial North America
Read more: Found in a Candy Tin: One of the First Coins Struck in Colonial North AmericaThe Cool Finds column at Smithsonian Magazine has a story about a remarkable find. A one shilling coin minted in 1652 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was found in a candy tin. One of 40 known to exist, it was sold at auction for $351,912. A silver coin minted in colonial Boston in 1652 has sold for $351,912. The one shilling coin is one of just 40 of its kind known to survive today, the Associated Press (AP) reports. “I am not surprised at the amount of interest this exceptional coin attracted,” says James Morton, a coin specialist with London-based auction house Morton and Eden, in a statement. “The…
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New Book: “Collector’s Guide to Fort Payne Crinoids and Blastoids”
Read more: New Book: “Collector’s Guide to Fort Payne Crinoids and Blastoids”ESCONI member William Morgan, a retired professor from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has a new book called “Collector’s Guide to Fort Payne Crinoids and Blastoids”. The Fort Payne Formation of Kentucky dates to the early Mississippian Period. The focus of this book is on the Fort Payne Formation and the fossil crinoids and blastoids, which are found there. Although, it is not widely known outside of academic programs in geology and/or paleontology, the Fort Payne is one the largest Mississippian-age formations in the middle and southeastern United States. Unlike the crinoids found in the…
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New Book: “Collector’s Guide to Fort Payne Crinoids and Blastoids”
Read more: New Book: “Collector’s Guide to Fort Payne Crinoids and Blastoids”ESCONI member William Morgan, a retired professor from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has a new book called “Collector’s Guide to Fort Payne Crinoids and Blastoids”. The Fort Payne Formation of Kentucky dates to the early Mississippian Period. The focus of this book is on the Fort Payne Formation and the fossil crinoids and blastoids, which are found there. Although, it is not widely known outside of academic programs in geology and/or paleontology, the Fort Payne is one the largest Mississippian-age formations in the middle and southeastern United States. Unlike the crinoids found in the…
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Fossil Friday #85: Callipteridium neuropteroides From Danville Spoil Pile
Read more: Fossil Friday #85: Callipteridium neuropteroides From Danville Spoil PileThis is the “Fossil Friday” post #85. 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! You might recall that this year ESCONI had a couple field trips to a Danville, IL area spoil pile to collect fossils. There was a spring and a fall trip and we expect to return next spring. They were productive trips with many new and exciting finds for everyone. Most of the…
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Throwback Thursday #87: Field & Street
Read more: Throwback Thursday #87: Field & StreetThis is Throwback Thursday #87. 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! Field & Street was a column in the Chicago Reader from at least 1984 until April 2004. For most of its existence, it was written by Jerry Sullivan and ran bi-weekly. The Reader has an archive of many of the columns on their website. In case you haven’t heard of the Chicago Reader, it’s a free Chicago weekly newspaper that has been published…
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Reminder: ESCONI December 2021 General Meeting – December 3rd, 2021 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “The Life and Death of the Herrin Peat Swamp – Whys, Whens, and Hows”
Read more: Reminder: ESCONI December 2021 General Meeting – December 3rd, 2021 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “The Life and Death of the Herrin Peat Swamp – Whys, Whens, and Hows”The speaker at our December 3, 2021 meeting will be Scott Elrick, Head of the Coal, Bedrock and Industrial Minerals Section of ISGS. The topic of his talk via Zoom will be paleoecology of the Herrin Coal roof shales including depositional environment and climate. This talk should should add context to the fossil flora found at the Danville shale pile. A story about Scott and the discovery of a large underground coal forest in the Smithsonian Magazine from 2009. Finding a fossil in a coal mine is no big deal. Coal deposits, after all, are petrified peat swamps, and peat…
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Video for ESCONI June 2021 General Meeting – “The Glasford Structure: A Marine Target Impact Crater with a Possible Connection to the Great Ordovician Meteorite Shower”
Read more: Video for ESCONI June 2021 General Meeting – “The Glasford Structure: A Marine Target Impact Crater with a Possible Connection to the Great Ordovician Meteorite Shower”The speaker at our June 2021 meeting was Charles Monson from ISGS. Charles recently published on the Glasford Illinois impact structure and its relation to the Ordovician meteor event. WCBU, a joint service of Bradley University and Illinois State University, interviewed Charles back in November 2019. Their program is online and available for listening. His paper was published in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science. Glasford Meteor May Have Played a Role in Ancient Ice Age New research on a central Illinois crater suggests possible links to an Ice Age about 455 million years ago. Charles Monson is an assistant project coordinator…
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ESCONI Events December 2021
Read more: ESCONI Events December 2021Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings! Friday, Dec 3rd ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 PM Zoom – Topic: “The Life and Death of the Herrin Peat Swamp – Whys, Whens, and Hows” by Scott Elrick, Head of the Coal, Bedrock and Industrial Minerals Section of ISGS. Zoom link ESCONI Junior Meeting – No Meeting in December ESCONI Paleontology Meeting – No Meeting in December Happy Holidays! See you in 2022!
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Mazon Monday #88: Hesserella shermani
Read more: Mazon Monday #88: Hesserella shermaniThis is Mazon Monday post #88. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Hesserella shermani is the earliest known isopod in the fossil record. Isopods are crustaceans, which includes shrimp, crabs, and lobsters. Modern day rolly-pollys are isopods, They have many common names like pill bugs, woodlice, and doodle bugs. They are the only crustaceans that spend their whole life on land. H. shermani was described in 1970 by Frederick Schram, while he was at the Field Museum. Frederick Schram is an absolute giant in fossil crustaceans having written over 200 papers on the subject. He described…
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Weird Tracks in Texas Indicate Giant Sauropods Walking on Their Front Feet Only
Read more: Weird Tracks in Texas Indicate Giant Sauropods Walking on Their Front Feet OnlyNature Science Alert has a story about sauropods. Some strange footprints, found near Bandera, Texas back in the 1930’s, could show swimming behavior in sauropods. That theory dates to a letter written by Roland T. Bird in 1940 about front foot only prints made by sauropods. A paper in 2019 reexamined the question, but at a different locality – Coffee Hollow, part of the Glen Rose Formation. That locality was discovered in 2007 and dates to the Cretaceous Period. “They were all typical forefeet impressions as if the animal had just been barely kicking bottom.” With time, Bird’s interpretation of…
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Jurassic World “Dominion” Trailer
Read more: Jurassic World “Dominion” TrailerScreen Rant has a new movie trailer for Jurassic World 3, schedule for release in June 2022. Say what you will about the science, but the special effects are stunning! This trailer shows scenes from the Cretaceous through the present day in Jurassic World. This one has both the required fight scene between large predatory dinosaurs and an interaction between a T-rex and people. Check it out! On the heels of Trevorrow confirming that the film was officially complete, Universal Pictures has debuted a Jurassic World: Dominion trailer, which was previously released as a special IMAX preview to F9: The Fast Saga‘s theatrical release.…
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- ESCONI June 2026 General Meeting, Friday, June 12th, 2026 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “At the Intersection of Art and Science: Outreach in Natural History Museums”
The ESCONI June 2026 General Meeting will be held via Zoom at 8:00 PM on Friday, June 12th, 2026. Adrienne… Read more: ESCONI June 2026 General Meeting, Friday, June 12th, 2026 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “At the Intersection of Art and Science: Outreach in Natural History Museums”
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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. Emily Hillan will present “New insights from Tiktaalik roseae: The role of legs before the origin of limbs”. |
| No meeting this month | Junior Study Group Meeting |
| No meeting this month | Mineralogy Study Group |