Tag: MazonMonday
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Fossil Friday #255: Pecopteris bucklandii
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #255. This is a 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 hash tag #FossilFriday on Twitter/X and Bluesky for contributions from around the world! —————————————————– We have a very rare Mazon…
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Mazon Monday #258: Myriotheca scaberrima
This is Mazon Monday post #258. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Myriotheca scaberrima is a very rare fern, which was originally only known from fertile foliage. It was named by Leo Lesquereux as Sphenopteris scaberrima in 1870. In 1901, it was reclassified as Myriotheca scaberrima by Elias Howard Sellards (1875 –…
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Mazon Monday #257: Mazon Creek Fossil Species Named for ESCONI
This is Mazon Monday post #257. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. ESCONI has played a significant role in the study of the Mazon Creek fossil biota. Its members have authored at least nine books on the subject, beginning with George Langford, Sr. in the late 1950s and early 1960s, followed…
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Mazon Monday #256: Sphenophyllum emarginatum
This is Mazon Monday post #256. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Sphenophyllum emarginatum is a species in the order Sphenophyllales, which is an extinct order of plants that existed from the late Pennsylvanian to the Early Permian. They are a sister taxa to the present day Equisetales (horsetails). The parent…
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Mazon Monday #255: A Forest of the Coal Age
This is Mazon Monday post #255. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Over the years, the Field Museum published many pamphlets, leaflets, journals, bulletins, etc. There’s a page on the museum website dedicated to sharing that wealth of knowledge. The popular/leaflet series was a series of booklets on popular topics for…
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Mazon Monday #254: Pit 11 Concretions
This is Mazon Monday post #254. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. —————————————————– In less than a month, fossil collecting season will begin at the IDNR Mazonia-Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area. Many of you are likely eager to get out there before the vegetation returns and obscures the concretions scattered…
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Mazon Monday #253: Pipiscius zangerli
This is Mazon Monday post #253. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Pipiscius zangerli is an extinct species of lamprey that lived 307-309 million years ago, during the Middle Pennsylvanian Epoch of the Carboniferous Period. It has a distinctive crown-like mouth comprising a ring of radially arranged teeth. It is known…
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Mazon Monday #252: Reticulopteris muensterii var. dawsonii
This is Mazon Monday post #252. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Reticulopteris munsterii var. dawsonii was a seed fern found in the Mazon Creek fossil deposit. It is fairly uncommon. Except for the venation, the pinnules resemble Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri. In M. scheuchzeri the veins run in parallel, while Reticulopteris munsterii…
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Mazon Monday #251: Tardisia broedeae
This is Mazon Monday post #251. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. The Mazon Creek fossil fauna has a new member!. Hot off the internet presses, we present to you… Tardisia broedeae gen. et sp. nov (new species and new genus). The animal was described in the paper “A possible vicissicaudatan…
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Mazon Monday #250: Neuropteris jacksonii
This is Mazon Monday post #250. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Neuropteris jacksonii was named by William Culp Darrah (1909-1989) in 1969, who was an educator, paleontologist, geologist, botanist, and historian. His “A Critical Review of the Upper Carboniferous Floras of the Eastern United States” and many, many professional paper…
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Mazon Monday #249: Pecopteris oreopteridia
This is Mazon Monday post #249. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Pecopteris oreopteridia is a fern from the Carboniferous Period, which has been found in the Mazon Creek fossil deposits. It is fairly uncommon and resembles Crenulopteris acadica in appearance (see Mazon Monday #115). Besides the crenulated edge on mature…
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Mazon Monday #248: Paleolimulus mazonensis
This is Mazon Monday post #248. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. There are currently 3 recognized species of horseshoe crab known from the Mazon Creek deposit – Euproops danae, Paleolimulus sp., and Liomesaspis laevis. Euproops danae is the most commonly found species. Until 2022, Paleolimulus was largely undescribed. In 2022,…
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Mazon Monday #247: Oligocarpia gutbierii
This is Mazon Monday post #247. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Oligocarpia gutbierii is a herbaceous fern found in the Mazon Creek fossil biota. It belongs to a poorly understood group, which was an early member of the extant order Filicales. Oligocarpia gutbierii was first described in 1841 by Heinrich Göppert, a…
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Mazon Monday #246: Stephanospermum konopeonus
This is Mazon Monday post #246. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Seeds were relatively rare in the Pennsylvanian Period. Most plants, including the true ferns, reproduced via spores. The only plants that bore seeds were the medullosan pteridosperms, or seed ferns. The most common seed found in the Mazon Creek…
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Mazon Monday #245: Annularia annulariaefolius
This is Mazon Monday post #245. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Annularia annulariaefolius represents foliage from a shrub-like sphenophyte. It was described as Lycopodites annulariaefolius in 1870 by Leo Lesquereux. Lesquereux was a swiss bryologist, who lived from 1806 until 1889. In 1970, he wrote “Report on the Fossil Plants…
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Mazon Monday #244: First Arthroplura Identified from Mazon Creek
This is Mazon Monday post #244. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Arthropleura cristata was described by Eurgene Richardson, Jr. in 1956 in “Pennsylvanian invertebrates of the Mazon Creek area, Illinois. Trilobitomorpha: Arthropleurida” in Fieldiana Geology 12(4): 76-76. He based this work on specimens he collected with George Langford in 1952…
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Mazon Monday #243: Radstockia kidstonii
This is Mazon Monday post #243. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Radstockia kidstonii is a very rare plant fossil from the Mazon Creek deposit. It is currently considered a true fern, as the pinnules and fertile structures are similar to the modern fern Marattia alata. It was originally named Radstockia…
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Mazon Thursday #242: Linopteris neuropteroides
This is Mazon Monday post #242. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. This is Mazon Thursday. We moved this week’s Mazon Monday to Thursday to do a Veteran’s Day post on Monday. Linopteris neuropteroides is a very rare seed fern known from Mazon Creek and other Pennsylvanian localities. It was originally…
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Mazon Monday #241: Eucryptocaris asherorum
This is Mazon Monday post #241. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Eucryptocaris asherorum is a species of extinct shrimp-like animals from Mazon Creek. They are members on the suborder Tanaidacea, a minor group within the class Malacostraca. Extant members of Tanaidacea are mostly marine, but a few species live in…
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Mazon Monday #240: Sphenopteris spinosa
This is Mazon Monday post #240. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Sphenopteris is a genus of seed ferns. Seed ferns, Pteridospermatphyta, as a group have a geologic range which spanned from the late Devonian to the late Cretaceous, although a few species seem to have survivied into the Eocene. Sphenopteris…
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Mazon Monday #239: Mazon Creek Fossil Day Report
This is Mazon Monday post #239. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. The 2024 ESCONI Mazon Creek Fossil Day was held on October 12th at the Coal City Library. It proved to be a huge success, attracting more than 100 visitors throughout the day. Many attendees brought fossils for identification, including…
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Mazon Monday #238: Alethopteris lesquereuxii
This is Mazon Monday post #238. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Alethopteris lesquereuxii was originally named Callipteridium mansfieldi by Leo Lesquereux in 1879. C. mansfieldi was named for the Hon. Ira Franklin Mansfield, who was a politician and an extensive owner of coal mining interest in the middle to late…
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Mazon Monday #237: Danville Field Trip Report for Fall 2024
This is Mazon Monday post #237. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Fortunately, the threat of bad weather never materialized and we enjoyed a very nice day collecting fossils from a spoil pile just outside Danville, IL on September 28th, 2024. This was our second trip to the spoil pile in…
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Mazon Monday #236: Cyathocarpus arborea
This is Mazon Monday post #236. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Cyathocarpus arborea is one of the rarer species of fern in the Mazon Creek deposit. It was originally named as Filicites arborescens by Ernst Freiedrich, Freiherr von Schlotheim in 1820. Schlotheim was a German paleontologist and pollitician who lived…
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Mazon Monday #235: Desden Lakes Field Trip June 1976
This is Mazon Monday post #235. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Dresden Lakes was productive Mazon Creek fossil locality just east of Morris, IL. It was known for large concretions with detailed fossils in dark colors, grays and blacks. Unfortunately, the dark colors can be hard to photograph. Large concretions…
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Mazon Monday #234: Braceville Field Trip Report for Fall 2024
This is Mazon Monday post #234. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. ESCONI hosted the Fall 2024 edition of the Braceville Field Trip over the weekend of September 7th and 8th. The primary focus of the event was searching for Mazon Creek fossils and concretions. The site, commonly referred to as…
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Mazon Monday #233: How the Tully monster became Illinois’ official state fossil
This is Mazon Monday post #233. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. As you probably know, the Tully Monster is the State Fossil of Illinois. It a real fan favorite. Everyone loves the Tully Monster… did you know there are stuffed Tullys you can buy online?!? Last week, the Chicago Tribune…
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Mazon Monday #232: Braidwood Field Trip – September 1959
This is Mazon Monday post #232. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. On September 27th, 1959, ESCONI sponsored the Annual Autumn Braidwood Field Trip. These trips were held each year many times with the different Chicago clubs rotating as hosts. John and Lucy McLuckie were on hand every year. Sometimes, the…
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Mazon Monday #231: Pecopteris strongii
This is Mazon Monday post #231. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Pecopteris strongii is a rare fossil fern known only from the Mazon Creek Fossil Flora. It was named for early Mazon Creek collector Samuel Strong by Leo Lesquereux in 1870. Strong was a prolific collector, who later sold most…
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Mazon Monday #230: Konecnys in Earth Science Magazine
This is Mazon Monday post #230. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Over the years, we’ve shared numerous articles about Jim and Sylvia Konecny, highlighting their significant contributions to ESCONI. Jim served as ESCONI’s president in 1966 and 1967, but both he and Sylvia were involved in much more. They played…
