Tag: Arjan Mann
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Mazon Monday #307: Arjan Mann on Fossil Nerds
This is Mazon Monday post #307. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Episode #94 of the Fossil Nerds podcast is “The Marvelous Mini-Monsters of Mazon Creek with Arjan Mann”. Arjan is the Assistant Curator of Early Tetrapods at the Field Museum. He discusses his lab’s work, various ancient fish and tetrapods,…
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Mazon Monday #286: There’s a Mother Lode of Fossils in Chicago’s Backyard, and It Could Hold Clues to the Evolution of Life on Earth
This is Mazon Monday post #286. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Last week, Mazon Creek, the Field Museum, and ESCONI were back in the news! WTTW, Chicago’s public television station, ran an article highlighting Mazon Creek. The story is an excellent read, exploring the scientific importance and new research of…
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Mazon Creek, Field Museum, and ESCONI in the News!
Mazon Creek, Field Museum, and ESCONI was in the news on multiple Chicago channels! FOX 32 CBS News NBC 5 Chicago One of the “world’s best fossil sites” is located just an hour outside of the Windy City, according to Chicago Field Museum researchers. Dr. Arjan Mann, assistant curator of early tetrapods at the Field…
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Mazon Monday #281: 283,821 concretions, how do you measure the Mazon Creek?
This is Mazon Monday post #281. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. There’s quite a bit of Mazon Creek fossil research happening. Last week, we posted a paper that redescribed Palaeocampa (see Mazon Monday #280), some of our friends at the Field Museum had a paper about Sphenophyllales in June (see…
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Mazon Monday #279: Prehistoric paradise hiding just outside Chicago
This is Mazon Monday post #279. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. When Arjan Mann and his lab at the Field Museum held a field trip to the Braceville spoil pile back in May 2025, he invited a ESCONI. Here is the story on Reuters. Near a riverbank in central Illinois,…
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Mazon Tuesday #271: Chicago Tribune: The world’s best-preserved fossils are right outside Chicago
This is Mazon Monday post #271. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. We have a bonus Mazon Monday this week—though since this second post falls on a Tuesday, we’ll call it Mazon Tuesday. On Monday, May 26th, the Chicago Tribune published an article highlighting Mazon Creek, the Field Museum, and ESCONI—a…
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Mazon Monday #270: Braceville Field Trip Report for Spring 2025
This is Mazon Monday post #270. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. We had absolutely beautiful weather for both Saturday and Sunday, although it did get a little windy on Saturday. Attendance was excellent with very few no shows. Members who couldn’t make it, cancelled early to enable those on the…
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Mazon Monday #260: Mazon Creek and the Field Museum in the News!
This is Mazon Monday post #260. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Sorry for the delay today. Typepad was having technical difficulties. WBEZ had a recent story about Mazon Creek fossils. Some of our favorite scientists at the Field Museum were mentioned in the article. Inside the fossil hunt: Digging for…
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Mazon Monday #223: NAPC at Braceville!
This is Mazon Monday post #223. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. The first NAPC conference was held in 1969 at the Field Museum in Chicago, IL (see Mazon Monday #221). ESCONI participated by displaying many nice Mazon Creek fossils. NAPC 2024 was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan the week of…
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Fossil Friday #218: Rhabdoderma elegans from the Field Museum
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #218. 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! Rhabdoderma elegans was described by John Strong…
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Newly Discovered Fossil from the Smithsonian’s Collection Named After Kermit the Frog
Smithsonian Magazine has an article about a new species named for the Muppet character Kermit the Frog. Kermitops gratus lived during the early Permian in what is now Texas, about 280 million years ago. The paper’s authors Calvin So, Arjan Mann, and Jason Pardo describe the new species as a pro-amphibian. The skull fossil was…
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Mazon Monday #159: A new Carboniferous edaphosaurid and the origin of herbivory in mammal forerunners
This is Mazon Monday post #159. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Arjan Mann is lead author of a paper that describes a new edaphosaurid, Melanedaphodon hovaneci, from the late Pennsylvanian Period around 310 million years ago. The paper appeared in the in the journal Nature. The animal is a ancestor…
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Mazon Monday #110: Trip Report: Danville Shale Pile April 23rd, 2022
This is Mazon Monday post #110. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Back on April 23rd, 2022, ESCONI held our 4th field trip to a shale pile just outside of Danville, IL. The trip was a huge success, although a little hot at nearly 87 degrees. We were honored by the…
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Mazon Monday #106: Video for Arjan Mann’s “Revisiting the exceptional tetrapod fauna of Mazon Creek, Illinois”
This is Mazon Monday post #106. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Back in November 2020, Arjan Mann spoke at the ESCONI General Meeting about Mazon Creek tetrapods. Due to some research that had yet to be published, we couldn’t post the video of his excellent presentation, which was entitled “Revisiting…
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Nature: Snake-like limb loss in a Carboniferous amniote
Nature Ecology & Evolution has a new paper on Mazon Creek tetrapods. This paper describes snake-like limb loss in an amniote, Nagini mazonense, found in the Mazon Creek fossil deposit. The authors are Arjan Mann of the Smithsonian Institution, Jason Pardo of the Field Museum, and Hillary Maddin of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Arjan…
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Mazon Monday #70: New Mazon Creek Vertebrate – Joemungandr bolti
This is Mazon Monday post #70. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Arjan Mann gave a presentation at the November 2020 ESCONI General Meeting about Mazon Creek vertebrates. Now, he’s out with a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science that describes a new Mazon Creek tetrapod. The paper…
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Mazon Monday #41: Revisiting the exceptional tetrapod fauna of Mazon Creek, Illinois
This is Mazon Monday post #41. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. This article is republished from the January 20201 ESCONI Newsletter. If you are a member, you will receive this newsletter January – June, July/August, and September – December during the year. Please consider joining ESCONI for $20 a year…
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ESCONI November 2020 General Meeting – November 13th, 2020 at 8:00 PM via Zoom – “New Tetrapod Discoveries from Mazon Creek”
Our speaker via Zoom in November is Dr. Arjan Mann. Arjan recently received his PhD from Carleton University in Toronto. He is transitioning to a postdoc position at Harvard. Arjan co-authored articles naming two new species of microsaurs called Diabloroter and Infernovenator. The title of his talk is “New Tetrapod Discoveries from Mazon Creek”. Here’s…
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Ancient ‘coal dragon’ is now the oldest parareptile ever found
CBC has a story about an interesting new species of ancient parareptile. Named Carbonodraco lundi, this animal lived about 306 million years ago in what is now Linton, Ohio. This is the same time period as the famous fossils from Illinois’ Mazon Creek biota. The details were recently published in the journal Royal Society Open…
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Carlton PhD Student: Filling in the Fossil Record
Carlton University in Ottawa, CA has a press release about the PhD student that has been involved in recently describing two new Mazon Creek vertebrates. Earlier this year, Diabloroter bolti (paper) and Infernovenator steenae (paper) were published. The research has been conducted by Arjan Mann, Jason D Pardo, and Hillary C Maddin of the Department…
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Infernovenator steenae, a new serpentine recumbirostran from the ‘Mazon Creek’ Lagertätte further clarifies lysorophian origins
The Zoological Journal has another new paper describing a Mazon Creek vertebrate. This one is called Infernovenator steenae. The paper is authored by Arjan Mann, Jason D Pardo, and Hillary C Maddin of the Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, CA. Earlier this year, Mann and Maddin published a description of a…
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Diabloroter bolti, a short-bodied recumbirostran ‘microsaur’ from the Francis Creek Shale, Mazon Creek, Illinois
The Zoological Journal has a new paper describing a Mazon Creek “Microsaur” Diabloroter bolti. The paper is authored by Arjan Mann and Hillary C Maddin of the Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, CA. The sculpture in the picture was created by David Duck, who has been an ESCONI member. Congrats! The…
