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Rescheduled Warehouse Work Day Due to Weather – Saturday, January 25th, 2020, 9:00 – 1:00ish
Read more: Rescheduled Warehouse Work Day Due to Weather – Saturday, January 25th, 2020, 9:00 – 1:00ishIf you have some time, come join our work day at the warehouse on Saturday, January 25th, 2020 from 9:00-1:00ish. If the weather is bad, we will choose a different day and let everyone know. The warehouse address is 900 Knell in Montgomery, IL. Please meet/enter in the back of the warehouse ONLY. You will see railroad tracks along the back of the warehouse. Drive all the way to the end in the back. For more information, contact us at esconi.info@gmail.com
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Burpee Museum: PaleoFest 2020, Friday, March 6th and Saturday, March 7th, 2020
Read more: Burpee Museum: PaleoFest 2020, Friday, March 6th and Saturday, March 7th, 2020PaleoFest 2020 will be held on Friday, March 6th and Saturday, March 7th, 2020 at the Burpee Museum in Rockford, IL. Always an interesting time. Here are all the details! Friday, March 6th: Members Only Reception 5:30pm: Members Only Reception 7:00pm: Keynote Presentation By: Dr. Larisa DeSantis, Vanderbilt University Topic: Saber-Toothed Cats Saturday, March 7th: PaleoFest Day 1 8:30am: Doors Open 9:00am: Speaker Symposium Begins 4:00pm: Speaker Symposium Ends 4:30- 6:30PM:Cocktail Mixer: LIVE MUSIC 6:30PM: Dinner Seating Evening Feature: 7:30 Keynote Lecture Keynote Speaker TBA Sun March 8th: PaleoFest Day 2 8:30am: Doors Open 9:00am: Speaker Symposium Begins 4:00pm: Speaker…
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100 million years in amber: Researchers discover oldest fossilized slime mold
Read more: 100 million years in amber: Researchers discover oldest fossilized slime mold100 million-year-old amber piece with lizard leg and mycomycete (arrow). Credit: Alexander Schmidt, University of Göttingen and Scientific Reports Phys.org has a story about some very old slime. Many fossils have been found amber, including dinosaur tail feathers a few years ago. This time it’s some very old fungi. In this case, a mycomycete and it’s next to a piece of lizard leg. This is the oldest slime mold every found… they are extremely rare in the fossil record. All the details can be found in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. Most people associate the idea of creatures…
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Meteorite Grains Are the Oldest Known Solid Material on Earth
Read more: Meteorite Grains Are the Oldest Known Solid Material on EarthSmithsonian Magazine has an article about some very old dust. Even if you haven’t cleaned lately, it’s highly doubtful the dust around your home is as old as the dust described in a recent paper published in the journal PNAS. The lead author is a curator of meteorites at the Field Museum in Chicago, which has a large collection of meteorites. The meteorite analyzed in this study is the famous Murchison meteorite. A little more than 50 years ago, on September 28, 1969, a meteorite crashed near the rural village of Murchison in Victoria, Australia. Witnesses saw a fireball streak through…
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World Atlas: What Is The Difference Between Paleontology And Archeology?
Read more: World Atlas: What Is The Difference Between Paleontology And Archeology?Check out this article in the World Atlas. I hear this all the time when I mention fossil hunting… quite often they say something like “I love archeology” or “When did you get interested in archeology” or even “Where do archeologists find dinosaur bones?” Hopefully, this will clear up the concepts, paleontologists study dinosaurs and most other fossils like trilobites. It’s basically the study of ancient life before the Holocene. Archeology is the study of human artifacts and remains, going back to about 3.3 million years ago. Paleontology and archaeology are two closely related scientific fields of study. Despite having…
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Scientists Argue a ‘Corpse Signal’ Will Be Left in The Fossil Record of Our Time
Read more: Scientists Argue a ‘Corpse Signal’ Will Be Left in The Fossil Record of Our TimeScience Alert has an interesting story about whether humans will leave a signature in the fossil record. We have had a huge impact on the current direction of life on Earth, but will any of that impact be preserved in the fossil record… that is subject to much debate. Today, the vast majority of scientists agree that humans are causing unprecedented changes to our planet. Yet whether that warrants delineating an entirely new epoch is something geologists continue to disagree on. Some think the impact of humans is now so great, it exceeds the natural processes of the Holocene, while…
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PBS Eons: That Time the Mediterranean Sea Disappeared
Read more: PBS Eons: That Time the Mediterranean Sea DisappearedPBS Eons has a new episode. This one combines paleontology and geology to discuss the history of the Mediterranean Sea. How could a body of water as big as the Mediterranean just…disappear? It would take decades and more than 1,000 research studies to even start to figure out the cause — or causes — of one of the greatest vanishing acts in Earth’s history.
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ESCONI Flashback Friday #35: Dresden Lakes Field Trip June 1976
Read more: ESCONI Flashback Friday #35: Dresden Lakes Field Trip June 1976As part of the celebration of ESCONI’s 70th Anniversary, here is Flashback Friday post #35. If you have pictures or stories to contribute, please send them over to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! Here are pictures from a field trip to Dresden Lakes in 1976. Dresden Lakes is known for larger concretions with detailed fossils in dark colors, grays and blacks. The ground is clear with not much vegetation, so concretions should have been easy to find. Just imagine crawling around on those hills picking up some awesome possibilities…
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In Upstate New York, Ancient Arthropods Can Get Turned Into (Fool’s) Gold
Read more: In Upstate New York, Ancient Arthropods Can Get Turned Into (Fool’s) GoldAtlas Obscura has a piece about trilobites… golden trilobites. Trilobites are some of the most desirable fossils and highly detailed, pyritized trilobites are especially desirable. “Beecher’s Bed” is a famous trilobite quarry discovered and named for Charles Emerson Beecher, a paleontologist a the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. It is made of good old Ordovician shale and loaded with stunning trilobite specimens, all preserved in golden pyrite. First excavated in 1893, it was lost in 1904 after Beecher’s untimely death, because he never recorded the location. It was found again in 1982. Markus Martin took over the…
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800,000 Years Ago, a Meteor Slammed Into Earth. Scientists Just Found the Crater
Read more: 800,000 Years Ago, a Meteor Slammed Into Earth. Scientists Just Found the CraterLiveScience has a story about a century long search to find a meteor crater. About 790,000 years ago, a meteor hit the Earth and spread tektites, shiny black lumps of rock, over about 10% of the surface of the planet. The tektites were found from Indonesia to eastern Antarctica and from the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific Ocean. Now, scientists from the Jackson School Museum of Earth History at the University of Texas have published a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which, they claim to have found the crater. Geochemical analysis and…
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Reminder: ESCONI January 2020 General Meeting Michelle Wenz – “Earth’s Inner Workings Revealed through Mineral Inclusions in Diamond” on January 10, 2020
Read more: Reminder: ESCONI January 2020 General Meeting Michelle Wenz – “Earth’s Inner Workings Revealed through Mineral Inclusions in Diamond” on January 10, 2020Electron microscope images of diamonds from the Juína area of Brazil.Credit…Suzette Timmerman The speaker at our January 10, 2020 meeting will be Michelle Wenz, a PhD student from Northwestern University. The title of her talk is “Earth’s Inner Workings Revealed through Mineral Inclusions in Diamond”. She is working on an suite of superdeep diamonds from Juina, Brazil, many of which appear to have come from the 400-700 km depth range. Her research focus is on water, and deep-mantle water cycling. She developed a method using synchrotron radiation (X-rays) from the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne to image tomographically the location…
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ESCONI January 2020 Junior Meeting – Does your child like earth science books? on January 10, 2020
Read more: ESCONI January 2020 Junior Meeting – Does your child like earth science books? on January 10, 2020Does your child like earth science books? Bring them to our next junior meeting and we will use picture books to identify rocks & minerals! Ages 6 to 17 are welcome. Friday January 10, 2020 at 7pm College of DuPage Technical Education Center West side room 1038A Contact gallowayscottf@gmail.com with questions Go to www.ESCONI.org for the map.
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Happy Perihelion Day 2020! Earth Is Closest to the Sun Today
Read more: Happy Perihelion Day 2020! Earth Is Closest to the Sun TodayAn illustration of perihelion and aphelion in the Earth's orbit around the sun, as well as the moon's apogee and perigee in its orbit around planet Earth. (Image credit: NASA) Today is Perihelion Day! We are at our closest approach to the sun… checkout all the details over on Space.com. Unfortunately, we are still in Winter, but the days have been getting longer since the Winter Solstice. It won't be long before spring is here and we'll all be out collecting fossils again! At the time of perihelion, Earth is about 91,398,199 miles (147,091,144 kilometers) away from the sun. On average, Earth's…
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Rescheduled Warehouse Work Day Due to Weather – Saturday, January 25th, 2020, 9:00 – 1:00ish
Read more: Rescheduled Warehouse Work Day Due to Weather – Saturday, January 25th, 2020, 9:00 – 1:00ishIf you have some time, come join our work day at the warehouse on Saturday, January 25th, 2020 from 9:00-1:00ish. If the weather is bad, we will choose a different day and let everyone know. The warehouse address is 900 Knell in Montgomery, IL. Please meet/enter in the back of the warehouse ONLY. You will see railroad tracks along the back of the warehouse. Drive all the way to the end in the back. For more information, contact us at esconi.info@gmail.com
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Teenage T. Rex Fossils Reveal Haphazard Growth Spurts
Read more: Teenage T. Rex Fossils Reveal Haphazard Growth SpurtsSmithsonian Magazine has an article about teenage T. rex fossils. The article discusses a recent paper that appeared in Science Advances. That paper readdresses the two sleek, and slender tyrannosaurs, nicknamed Jane and Petey, at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Illinois and concludes that the two specimens are juvenile T. rexes, not Nanotyrannus as was previously published. Maxing out around 40 feet in length and up to 9 tons in weight, adult T. rex were a force to be reckoned with. But the most well-studied T. rex fossils have also been the biggest—adults that had wrapped up most of the growing process…
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ESCONI Flashback Friday #34: Pictures From a Fossil Field Trip To Indiana May 4-5, 1957
Read more: ESCONI Flashback Friday #34: Pictures From a Fossil Field Trip To Indiana May 4-5, 1957As part of the celebration of ESCONI’s 70th Anniversary, here is Flashback Friday post #34. If you have pictures or stories to contribute, please send them over to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! Here are some pictures from a field trip to a few localities in Indiana May 4-5, 1957. No hard hats and check out those clothes! Indiana Paleontology trip – Allaway, M.Balbitt, H.Bonow Stoney Creek Motel in Bloomington briefing for Madison, Ind Highway near Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington-Nashville road crinoids Spencer, Indiana Helen Law Indiana quarry Betty Farr & Mary Fitly
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ESCONI Events January 2020
Read more: ESCONI Events January 2020Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings! Fri, Jan 10th ESCONI Junior Meeting, 7:00 PM College of Dupage – Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038A (Map) – Topic: “Does your child like earth science books?” Fri, Jan 10th ESCONI General Meeting, 8:00 PM College of Dupage – Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038A (Map) – Topic: “Earth’s Inner Workings Revealed through Mineral Inclusions in Diamond” by Michelle Wenz, Researcher at Northwestern University Sat, Jan 18th ESCONI Paleontology Study Group Meeting, 7:30 PM –Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) – Topic: “Middle Cambrian Fossils of Utah” by…
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Man Keeps Rock For Years, Hoping It’s Gold. It Turned Out to Be Far More Valuable #meteorite
Read more: Man Keeps Rock For Years, Hoping It’s Gold. It Turned Out to Be Far More Valuable #meteoriteScienceAlert has a post about a valuable find in Australia. It seems that David Hole found a rock he hoped would be gold. It wasn’t, but as it turns out it was more valuable than gold! In 2015, David Hole was prospecting in Maryborough Regional Park near Melbourne, Australia. Armed with a metal detector, he discovered something out of the ordinary – a very heavy, reddish rock resting in some yellow clay. He took it home and tried everything to open it, sure that there was a gold nugget inside the rock – after all, Maryborough is in the Goldfields…
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LiveScience: The 100 Best Science Photos of 2019
Read more: LiveScience: The 100 Best Science Photos of 2019Live Science has an interesting post, which includes 100 awesome science photos from 2019. Check it out… a great way to relax on New Years Day! Happy New Year from us at ESCONI! About 99 million years ago, a Cretaceous millipede scampered over the forest floor in what is now Southeast Asia, avoiding being squished by neighboring dinosaurs. But the millipede, now called Burmanopetalum inexpectatum, did stumble into a sticky patch of sap, said researchers who found the tiny corpse entombed in the hardened form of that sap called amber.
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SciNews: 305-Million-Year-Old Fossil Shows Parent Caring for Its Offspring
Read more: SciNews: 305-Million-Year-Old Fossil Shows Parent Caring for Its OffspringSciNews has a piece about an ancient synapsid with evidence that it cared for its young. The animal, called Dendromaia unamakiensis, lived about 305 million years ago in what is now Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. This find consists of both an adult and an associated juvenile which were found inside a fossilized tree stump. Evidence of behavior is rare in the fossil record, which is why this is a such a valuable find. The details of the discovery was published in a paper in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. “Parental care is a behavioral strategy where parents make…
ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show
Most Recent Post
- Throwback Thursday #312: Ron Schinderle Donation
Barb Schinderle stopped by ESCONI Show last month to drop off a donation of her late husband Ron’s fossils. Ron passed away in 2021. He was a long time ESCONI member and an avid fossil collector . He went on many ESCONI field trips. A group of us remember him fondly from our many trips to Pit 11 and Fossil Rock Campgrounds to collect Mazon Creek fossils.
- About ESCONI
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- Code of Ethics and Conduct
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- ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show
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- Field Trips
- Flashback Friday
- Fossil Friday
- Mazon Creek
- Mazon Monday
- Member Spotlight
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- Throwback Thursday
- Trilobite Tuesday
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 |