Tag: history
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Throwback Thursday #333: Looking Back At ESCONI for September 2026
ESCONI highlights from 25, 50, and 70 years ago
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Mazon Monday #338: Howellitubus whitfieldorum… The Mazon Creek Worm That Wasn’t
The history of Mazon Creek paleontology is filled with fossils that have been reinterpreted as new species when new information became available. Animals have been moved from one group to another, species have been renamed, and some fossils once thought to represent animals have turned out to be something else entirely. There are even some,…
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Throwback Thursday #332: Another Don Auler Painting at the Rock Swap
Some Don Auler art was on display at the recent ESCONI Rock Swap. Rick Rock had this painting of an owl on black shale up for sale. Long-time contributors B.J. and Mike Kukulka purchased it and graciously let us post it here.
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PBS Eons: When Earth Was a Toxic Wasteland
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the Permian Mass Extinction, the Earth’s worst mass extinction. Watch Eons: Life and Death on Pangea on the free PBS App: https://to.pbs.org/EonsApp or on the web here: https://pbs.org/eons ← use this link if you are outside of the U.S. For 3 million years, microbes ruled…
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Throwback Thursday #331: Happy (Belated) Unearth Day, SUE!
Last Wednesday was SUE’s Unearth Day! SUE was found by Sue Hendrickson on August 12th, 1990. Sue hung back at camp, while the rest of the team from the Black Hills Institute went to town to fix a flat tire on one of their trucks. Sue decided to explore some area around the camp. She…
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Mazon Monday #336: 1980’s Pit 11 Collecting
Keeping with the history theme, here’s a photo from a field trip to Pit 11 most likely from the 1980’s. You can see Braidwood Station in the background. Construction on August 1st, 1975 and completed in 1988.
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Throwback Thursday #330: All Illinois Rock Swap and Silent Auction 1976
August 28, 2026 will mark the 50th Anniversary of the “All Illinois Rock Swap and Silent Auction”. It was held on August 28th and 29th, 1976 at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL. The event was held in Parking Lot K. Long-time ESCONI member Rich Rock was Chairman. And really, who has a…
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Mazon Monday #335: Richardson Collecting at Pit 11 in 1974
A few years ago, Charlie Shabica donated a collection of historical documents to ESCONI, and these photographs were among the materials. They document a Mazon Creek field trip in July 1974 led by Eugene Richardson Jr., Curator of Fossil Invertebrates at the Field Museum.
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Throwback Thursday #329: Looking Back At ESCONI For July/August 2026
The newsletters are typically sparse in the summer, but here is a bit of ESCONI history for your summer reading pleasure. 25, 50, and 70 years ago…
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Throwback Thursday #328: Go on… Introduce yourself, tiny frog
The Field Museum made an intriguing historical post to LinkedIn last week. It was a meet-and-greet between two frogs…
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Rare Pompeii Ceiling Is Restored From Fragments, Depicting Scene From Myth
The New York Times has an interesting article about the restoration of a fresco at Pompeii. The fresco was restored from hundreds of plaster fragments recovered from the ruins of a house. The house, now called the “House with the Bakery”, was discovered by researchers in 2023. The fragments of plaster were like a “magnificent”…
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Throwback Thursday #327: Walter Cronkite and… dinosaurs!
David Bressan of the History of Geology group on Facebook has an interesting post about the 1991 A&E documentary series “Dinosaur!”. Walter Cronkite was the host. Several episodes are available to watch on YouTube. I vaguely remember watching the series when it aired. Revisiting it today is fascinating as it offers an opportunity to see…
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Mazon Monday #332: Tom Testa Winter Freeze/Thaw
Sorry, this is a bit of a repeat… But, Tom Testa has been on our minds lately and we’ve all been enduring a stretch of hot weather, so here’s a post that will cool you off!
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Throwback Thursday #326: Photos from a 1970 Lapidary Meeting
Andy and Rose Jansen recently received two photos from Mary Hason, daughter of Betty and Chet Williamson. The Williamsons were long-time members, joining ESCONI in 1959!
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Throwback Thursday #325: Journey to the Beginning of Time
Ok, who remembers “Journey to the Beginning of Time” on Garfield Goose on morning television in Chicago? Just recently, the trailer to the US version of the movie recently appeared in one of my feeds, so I did a little research to find out more about the film/episodes.
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Throwback Thursday #324: Poem “Cephalopodosis”
We have nothing but respect for cephalopods in ESCONI, but this is a rather odd poem called “Cephalopodosis” from B. J. Babbitt. This poem appeared in the June 1950 edition of the ESCONI newsletter. Babbitt was the editor of the newsletter at the time. And, he remained editor for ESCONI’s first three years.
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Throwback Thursday #323: June 30, 1956 Mid-Air Collision Over the Grand Canyon
Newspapers.com recently featured an interesting article about the tragic mid-air collision over the Grand Canyon on June 30, 1956. TWA Flight 2, a Lockheed Super Constellation en route to Kansas City, collided with United Flight 718, a DC-7 bound for Chicago. Both aircraft had departed from Los Angeles, and the collision is believed to have…
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Mazon Tuesday #328: The Legacy of Tom Testa
Michele Micetich, curator of the Carbon Hill School Museum, will host a special event on Saturday, June 27, 2026, celebrating the life and legacy of Tom Testa. A lifelong fossil collector with a passion for Mazon Creek fossils, Tom assembled one of the finest private collections of its kind. In 2015, he gave his collection…
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Throwback Thursday #322: An Othniel Charles Marsh “Origin of Species”
While speaking with a Field Museum visitor at the recent “Dinopalooza 2026”, I learned about an extraordinary book discovery made at a Salvation Army store in Delaware a few years ago. The visitor shared in a 2025 post he made on the Reddit community r/rarebooks. The book is a signed copy of On the Origin…
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Throwback Thursday #321: The Fossil Legacy of Thomas Jefferson
The following article “The Fossil Legacy of Thomas Jefferson” by Trick Runions, a long-time ESCONI member, first appeared in the May-June edition of the Flatirons Mineral Club newsletter “Flatirons Facets”.
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Happy 300th Birthday, James Hutton!
Today marks the 300th Birthday of James Hutton (1726-1797), a Scottish geologist, argiculturist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist, and physician. He is widely considered to be the “Father of Modern Geology”. Hutton was born on June 3rd, 1726 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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Throwback Thursday #319: Happy 150th Birthday, George Langford!
May 26th, 2026 marks George Langford’s 150th birthday! He was born on May 26th, 1876 in Denver, Colorado. George Langford Sr. is giant in the history of Mazon Creek. Before Jack Wittry’s books, George’s books were the go-to source of information about Mazon Creek. George wrote three books about Mazon Creek fossils. The first was…
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Throwback Thursday #318: 2001 Chicagoland Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show
The 2001 Chicagoland Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show was held at the DuPage County Fairgrounds. This was the 25th year for the show. Back then, the show spanned three days, for 2001, that was May 26th, 27th, and 28th, 2001.
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Throwback Thursday #317: The Fossil Story from Shell Oil Co.
I saw this video mentioned the May 1956 edition of the ESCONI newsletter (see Throwback Thursday #316). I vaguely remember watching it in grade school. It’s interesting how our view of paleontology changed with the addition of plate tectonics.
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Mazon Monday #321: So, where’s the shrimp?!?
Andy Jansen wrote this article for the December 2007 edition of the ESCONI newsletter. Andy has been an ESCONI board member for many years. He’s currently our Treasurer and Librarian. If you attended our show in March, he was in his usually position at the book display and sale tables.
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Throwback Thursday #315: Empire Quarry in Bloomington, Indiana
Atlas Obscura has an interesting post about the Empire Quarry located in the area of Bloomington, Indiana. This quarry supplied the 18,630 tons of stone used to build the Empire State Building in the 1920’s. Indiana is known for its rocks. Some of the world’s finest limestone hails from the area surrounding Bloomington and Bedford,…
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Mazon Monday #319: ESCONI Braceville Trip Spring 2005
Our spring trip to Braceville Spoil Pile is coming up in May. The sign-up will kick off very soon. We have been going there for many years. For the spring trip in 2005, Barbara Brotman, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune was there to talk to a few ESCONI members and talk about ESCONI.
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Throwback Thursday #314: Collecting from 1954
We are in the midst of the spring field trip season and this article by Roy Beghtol from the May 1954 edition of the ESCONI newsletter seemed appropriate.
