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PBS Eons: The Unsolved Case of a Fake Human Fossil
Read more: PBS Eons: The Unsolved Case of a Fake Human FossilPBS Eons has a new episode over on Youtube. This one is about the Piltdown Man hoax, which is still a mystery. This episode is a mystery in the most classic literary sense of the word. It’s a whodunit detective story that spans more than a century – the saga of the Piltdown Man Hoax.
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Fossil Friday #137: Horseshoe Crab from Indiana
Read more: Fossil Friday #137: Horseshoe Crab from IndianaThis is “Fossil Friday” post #137. 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, we have a Euproops sp. horseshoe crab from Indiana. This specimen comes from Daviess County, Indiana. The fossils date to the Pennsylvanian Period. This deposit is a little younger than the Mazon Creek fossil deposit at around 305 million year old. More information about Euproops sp. can be found in Mazon…
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Throwback Thursday #139: Looking Back at ESCONI
Read more: Throwback Thursday #139: Looking Back at ESCONIThis is Throwback Thursday #139. 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 1997 50 Years Ago – December 1972 70 Years Ago – December 1952
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ESCONI December 2022 General Meeting – December 2nd, 2022 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “The early diversification of birds: evidence from the Jehol avifauna”
Read more: ESCONI December 2022 General Meeting – December 2nd, 2022 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “The early diversification of birds: evidence from the Jehol avifauna”December’s General Meeting will be held at 8:00 PM on December 2nd, 2022. The presenter is Dr. Jingmai O’Connor Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles at the Field Museum. The topic of her talk is “The early diversification of birds: evidence from the Jehol avifauna”. She calls herself a paleontologista aka a punk rock paleontologist. Her research includes work on birds, dinosaurs, and the bird-dinosaur transition. The following is an excerpt from her Field Museum Staff Profile. Relatively speaking, my passion for paleontology developed late in life. I first became interested in evolution through Dr. Donald Prothero while a Geology…
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6 feet of snow in Buffalo: What causes lake-effect storms like this?
Read more: 6 feet of snow in Buffalo: What causes lake-effect storms like this?Is the weather considered Earth Science? Sure, of course! The Conversation has an interesting post that discusses the hows and whys of “lake-effect snow”. Remember the huge snowstorm in Buffalo in mid-November 2022? Well… there are reasons why this happens so often for western New York. Six foot snowstorms are not rare in Buffalo and that is explained by its location, a warmer lake, and cold dry winds. Lake-effect snow is strongly influenced by the differences between the amount of heat and moisture at the lake surface and in the air a few thousand feet above it. A big contrast creates…
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Mazon Monday #140: Gilpichthys greenei
Read more: Mazon Monday #140: Gilpichthys greeneiThis is Mazon Monday post #140. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! Gilpichthys greenei was a jawless fish. They are fairly rare and associated with the Essex fauna of Pit 11. G. greenei was described in 1977 by David Bardack and Eugene Richardson in the paper “New agnathous fishes from the Pennsylvanian of Illinois” appearing in Fieldiana, Vol. 33, No. 26, publication 1261, pp. 489-510. It was named for Frank Greene long time Mazon Creek collector, who is also the namesake for Reticulomedusa greenei. G. greenei appears in Jack Wittry’s “The Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek” on…
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ESCONI Events December 2022
Read more: ESCONI Events December 2022Field trips require membership, but visitors are welcome at all meetings! Fri, Dec 2nd ESCONI General Meeting 8:00 PM Zoom – Topic: “The early diversification of birds: evidence from the Jehol avifauna” by Dr. Jingmai O’Connor from the Field Museum Zoom link Sat, Dec 10th ESCONI Holiday Lunch – 12:00 PM at Warren’s Ale House in Wheaton, IL. (Map). Sat, Dec 10th ESCONI Junior Meeting – 7:00 PM at College of DuPage – Topic: Step 4 for the Rock Tumblers and Holiday ideas from the Catal Hayuk Specifics of this meeting are available from Scott Galloway, 630-670-2591, gallowayscottf@gmail.com. The meeting will…
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For years, experts said a Roman emperor wasn’t real. Scientists say a coin could prove otherwise
Read more: For years, experts said a Roman emperor wasn’t real. Scientists say a coin could prove otherwiseUSA Today has an interesting story about some Roman coins. The four coins were discovered in 1713 in what is now Romania. They depict three different people – one shows Emperor Gordian II and two show Emperor Phillip. The fourth coin is problematic as it bears the visage of Sponsian. Although there are other Sponsian coins in existence, he was not a Roman Emperor and so the coins were thought to be forgeries. However, recent research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, has come to a different conclusion. The coin has been authenticated using powerful microscopes. The coin was examined…
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As Dinosaur Fossils Fetch Millions, There’s Many a Bone to Pick
Read more: As Dinosaur Fossils Fetch Millions, There’s Many a Bone to PickThe New York Times has an article about the canceled auction of Shen a Tyrannosaurus rex. Christie’s was scheduled to auction the dinosaur in November 2022, but canceled the event when questions emerged about how it had been described. Shen’s skeleton consists of 79 original bones, which was described as “54% complete by bone density”. This description was questioned by professional paleontologists as misleading. The missing parts of the skeleton are replicas of Stan’s fossil bones. Stan is a T. rex that was discovered by the Black Hill Institute back in the 1990’s. It sold in a Christie’s auction for…
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Fossil Friday #136: Postcard from Holden Beach, North Carolina…
Read more: Fossil Friday #136: Postcard from Holden Beach, North Carolina…This is “Fossil Friday” post #136. 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 port, we have a guest post from ESCONI member Marie Angkuw. She has contributed quite a few Fossil Friday posts, including a Fossil Friday #93 on the “Pyritized Ammonites from the Jurassic Coast of England”. Post card from Holden Beach, North Carolina… By Marie Angkuw In April 2022, a long-awaited…
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Throwback Thursday #138: Under Your Feet
Read more: Throwback Thursday #138: Under Your FeetThis is Throwback Thursday #138. 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! Today, we have poem from the Chicago Lapidary Club, which doesn’t seem to exist anymore. There is a few photos of club pins online. The poem is attributed to R. Rindt and appeared in the October 1997 edition of the ESCONI newsletter. UNDER YOUR FEET Under your feet there’s a story to be told, Waiting in the form of rocks to unfold.The…
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ESCONI Holiday Lunch Saturday, December 10th, 2022 at 12:00 PM at Warren’s Ale House in Wheaton
Read more: ESCONI Holiday Lunch Saturday, December 10th, 2022 at 12:00 PM at Warren’s Ale House in WheatonThe ESCONI Holiday Party has been moved from evening of December 2nd, 2022 to lunch on Saturday, December 10th, 2022. Lunch will be at Warren’s Ale House in Wheaton, IL. The original party was canceled by the restaurant. See you there!
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New Bird-Like Dinosaur Species Found with Remains of Frog in Its Stomach
Read more: New Bird-Like Dinosaur Species Found with Remains of Frog in Its StomachSciNews has an article about the discovery of a new bird-like dinosaur. Daurlong wangi lived between 130 and 120 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period in what in now China. It was a dromaeosaur of medium size bird-like dinosaur. The animal, part of the famous Jehol Biota, was described in a paper, which appeared in the journal Scientific Reports. “Dromaeosauridae is a clade of small- to mid-sized theropod dinosaurs known from the Cretaceous of both hemispheres,” said Dr. Xuri Wang from the Institute of Geology at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and colleagues. “The Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota from north-eastern…
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Scientists Unearth a Prehistoric Marine Turtle the Size of a Car
Read more: Scientists Unearth a Prehistoric Marine Turtle the Size of a CarSmithsonian Magazine has an article about a new fossil turtle. The animal, Leviathanochelys aenigmatica, lived during the Cretaceous Period about 72 million years ago in what is now Spain. It was discovered by a hiker in the Pyrenes mountains. The new species was described in a new paper, which appeared in the journal Scientific Reports. Researchers have unearthed the remains of a new species of gigantic marine turtle in northern Spain. Weighing about two tons and measuring 12 feet long, the prehistoric creature is the largest of its kind ever discovered in Europe. The find was completely accidental: A hiker…
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Mazon Monday #139: Lepidocystis sp.
Read more: Mazon Monday #139: Lepidocystis sp.This is Mazon Monday post #139. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! For this week’s Mazon Monday, we have Lepidocystis sp., which is a type of spore packet associated with the cone genus Polysporia. Early Mazon Creek collectors referred to this as “cockroach egg sacs”. This is known to be false as Mazon Creek cockroaches are not cockroaches, but roachoid. Additionally, egg sacs in true cockroaches didn’t evolve until the late Mesozoic. Lepidocystis is considered uncommon. It was described in by Leo Lesquereux in 1879-1880. Lepidocystis sp. appears in Jack Wittry’s book “A Comprehensive Guide to…
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Scientists Find Plaster Copies of Fossil Destroyed by Nazis
Read more: Scientists Find Plaster Copies of Fossil Destroyed by NazisSmithsonian Magazine has a story about an interesting rediscovery. In 1818, Mary Anning discovererd one of most complete ichthyosaur skeletons ever found. The fossil eventually made its way to the Royal College of Surgeons in London, where it was destroyed in WW II by the Nazi bombing. There were a few drawing, but the fossil was thought lost forever. Recently, Dean Lomax a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in England, found two copies of the Anning specimen… one at Yale and the other in Berlin at the Natural History Museum. “Before the fame of the dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs were ‘the’…
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PBS Eons: We Met Neandertals Way Earlier Than We Thought
Read more: PBS Eons: We Met Neandertals Way Earlier Than We ThoughtPBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the missing Neandertal Y chromosome. My cousin did a DNA test the other month and was embarrassed about having a much higher amount of Neandertal DNA than the average European, but I told them about all the cool things I learned about them on this channel, like they were intelligent, and looked after the sick and it made my cousin feel a lot better about it.
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Fossil Friday #135: It’s Got Belotelson Eyes…
Read more: Fossil Friday #135: It’s Got Belotelson Eyes…This is “Fossil Friday” post #135. 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! Who’s old enough to remember the Kim Carnes song “Bette Davis Eyes”? This weeks submission is a very nice Belotelson magister shrimp with what appears to be an eye. It’s all there with quite a bit of detail! You can learn more about B. magister in Mazon Monday #13. B. magister was described…
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Throwback Thursday #137: Archaeopteryx in Chicago!
Read more: Throwback Thursday #137: Archaeopteryx in Chicago!This is Throwback Thursday #137. 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! October 1997 was a huge month for the Field Museum. The annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) was held there from October 8th-11th, 1997. This is an important meeting held each year. Jack Horner was named Acting President. He had just released his new book “Dinosaur Lives”. Oh… and Archaeopteryx was on display for the first and only time in…
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Most Recent Post
- Fossil Friday #312: Sublepidophloios protuberans with a spray of Cyperites bicarinatus
At first glance, today’s fossil might look like a cone. But, closer examination reveals it to be a nice specimen of Sublepidophloios protuberans with a spray of Cyperites bicarinatus at the top. Sublepidophloios protuberans is a species of lycopsid branch (see Mazon Monday #316) and Cyperites bicarinatus was the sterile leaves for the Lycopsida (see Mazon Monday #69). Lycopsids were giant club mosses that existed during the Carboniferous Period. Lycopsids are still around, just not the giants.
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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 |