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Today, I stopped by the DuPage County Fairgrounds fairgrounds for the 2024 ESCONI (Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois) Show. The show runs today and tomorrow and I have to say, it was really busy. The show is great for anyone interested in rocks, minerals or fossils. There were a number of dealers present as well as other things that are managed by ESCONI, such as Silent Auctions, Live Auctions, Kids Corner, Book sales, Demonstrations, etc. Book sales- Kids Corner Silent Auctions- Live Auctions- Demonstrations/ Give always- Displays-

Today I stopped at a friends house (Marty H.) and picked up about 10+ bags of Mazon Creek fossils. I have done this a number of times over the last couple of years. I go through them and place them into buckets so I can bring them to the ESCONI Braceville Shaft Mine Trip and dump them out for the participant’s. I like to go there with several buckets full of fossils. I went through a few bags and here are a few pictures of some of their contents. These fossils came from Pits 2, 3, 4, 11 and Dresden Lakes.

Today was Day 2 of ESCONI’s Braceville Shaft Mine Trip. Rich @stats will add some pictures from yesterday’s visit. He advised me that there were several FF members in attendance, including, but not limited @connorp , @bigred97. I believe that there were 50 participants yesterday and I believe that there were that many today. The weather was great for collecting, with the temp hitting a high of 80 by the time I left at 12:30 pm. People arrived a little before 9 am for the welcome talk and information on the site and collecting details. As usual, I brought a lot of fossils to dump for the participants. I had Mazon Creek fossils, other Pennsylvanian plant material from Danville, Illinois, Pennsylvanian brachiopods from Olgesby, Illinois, Ordovician hash plates from Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, Fossil shells from Florida as well as dugong ribs, Mississippian hash plates from Vienna, Illinois and I even dropped in a few echinoids from Morocco. It is a great way for me to get rid of excess stuff. @stats also brought a bucket to dump, in addition to stuff he brought yesterday. Here is a picture of FF member @CrustaceousBaki Caroline heading in to start collecting. Here she is getting her dig on. FF member @deutscheben was also out collecting today, here are a couple pics. Continued on next post.

Today, I along with about 25 other ESCONI (Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois) drove to a Danville Shale Pile that is about 4 hours from Chicago. I drove down last night and grabbed a hotel. I should do a separate post on that, but it might be to scary for our members. The site, which is on Private Property, is Pennsylvanian in age and the fossils are about 1 1/2 million years younger than the Pennsylvanian fossils found at Mazon Creek. The fossils are from the Carbondale Formation- Herrin ( No. 6 ) coal, which contains a mixture of “Red Dog” Shale as well as gray and black shales. Also found at this locations are concretions, similar to Mazon Creek. The day was beautiful, around 80 degrees F and the wind was blowing at about 13 mph. We collected from 10 am - 3 pm and then everyone brought up some of their finds to show and get ids. Information is being put together on this site to track the different species of fossils that are found. This post will be picture heavy and I will start out with a lot of pictures of the site and participants. Though fossils are everyone’s main focus, I do like to take the readers on a photo tour of the sites I visit so you can enjoy the area from afar. The cars lined up, waiting for the site to be unlocked. Getting ready to collect. @stats getting his boots on. Listening to pre-collect info on the site and safety precautions. @stats and a friend, Jeremy. @connorp in the Red shirt. @deutscheben @deutscheben and @bigred97 Yours truly on the left, then @connorp @bigred97 @deutscheben Jeremy and @stats. Here is a new member to the Forum, Carolyn @CrustaceousBaki doing her thing. She found a beautiful example of a Trigonocarpus seed, the first found at this site. Continued on next post.

This weekend was the Annual ESCONI Rock, Mineral and Fossil Show that is held on Saturday and Sunday at the DuPage County Fairgrounds. There were a lot of people at this local show and with the “feels like” temperature was hovering at about 5 degrees, it was a great place to go. This show has several vendors, exhibits, kids corner, demos, silent auction, live auction and door prizes. Exhibits- Demos- Kids Corner- Silent Auctions- 3 Tables that close I believe every 10 minutes. Continued on next post-

On September 17th, 2022, ESCONI held a field trip to a coal mine spoil pile near Danville, IL. It was a fairly hot day with temperatures in the upper 80's. However, it was a productive field trip. There had been quite a bit of work on the hill this summer and it was looking quite different from the spring. The road to the top went around from the left instead of the right. There weren't as many exposed fossils in "Red Dog" found this time, but concretions were readily available for collecting. There were a few Forum members present. @deutscheben @connorp I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, please announce yourself! Here are some photos of the trip. Some of the photos were taken with a drone. I need to take some more photos of fossils, so stay tuned... I'll post concretions if/when they open. There was a bunch of poison ivy all around outside of the hill. Mushrooms were plentiful. And, of course fossils!

Today was the late Summer ESCONI Braceville Shaftmine collecting trip. Well it was the first day, tomorrow will be the second day of the outing. Today’s trip ran from 9 am - 3 pm. I arrived early and unpacked my car. I try to bring a number of fossils that are dumped out for the participants to go through around noon time. Today I brought a potpourri of fossils that included a bunch of opened Mazon Creek fossils, Pleistocene/Pliocene shells from Florida, Oligocene mammal fossils from South Dakota, Cretaceous Pierre Shale ammonite / bivalves from South Dakota, Mississippian fossils from Vienna, Illinois, Pennsylvanian brachiopods from Oglesby, Illinois, Ordovician fossils from Southern Indiana and Kentucky, Shark teeth and mammoth ivory pieces from Florida, petrified wood from Arizona, cephalopods from Graf, Iowa, Carboniferous fossils from Catlin, Illinois and other fossils. I believe that there were between 40-50 participants. I only stayed around until 10 am, due to prior commitments, but I wanted to bring fossils to dump. There were several Forum members present, including @stats , @deutscheben , @connorp and others, hopefully Rich can add them. Prior to the start collecting , row call and rules are gone over. After that is taken care of most participants walk the 1/4 mile to the Shaftmine spoil pile, while others hang around and learn about fossil collecting at the site and what to look for. There are also Jack’s @fiddlehead books available for purchase. Then it is off to the collecting site for the others. Here are various pictures of the collectors doing their thing. More pictures to follow-

I donated the below specimen to the Field Museum of Natural History. It is identified as an Esconichthys apopyris. Work is being done on redefining/solidifying the categorization of this species, and a professional helped facilitate my donation to the museum. There are details on this specimen such as a yolk sac and I look forward to hearing if there are internal details such as vascular structures. I feel like I can see them but I am excited to open it up to professional analysis through donation to a research institution.

Today I spent about 5 hours at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, Illinois at the ESCONI (Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois) Show. It was nice to see the whole show again after Covid restrictions have been raised. The show, which is free, including parking, took place in 2 large rooms and there were many vendors. The show also has door prizes, exhibits, demonstrations, silent and live auctions as well as some Fossil Forum members. Below is a picture of @stats Rich (Right), me (Center) and @connorp Connor (Left). I know there were other members, but do not have pictures of them. Here are some pictures of the fossils for sale. Here are some pics of the and exhibits.

Today I stopped by the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, Illinois to attend the ESCONI Fall Mineral and Fossil Show. This was a limited show and did not have vendors like in the past, but it was still a great show for all who attended. The had things for kids as well as silent and live auction items, they were also selling all kinds of fossil and mineral related books, as well as all of @fiddlehead Jack Witry’s books on Mazon Creek Fauna and Flora and the was a Green River prep going on. A good time was had by all and it was great to see the excitement on younger kids when they won the silent and live auctions. It was really funny watching the bidding on a silent auction Mazon Creek piece. One adult who had been buying up a lot of items wanted this piece and the kid (9 years old) kept increasing his bid all the the way the final second and he got it for $50.00. I never had $50.00 at 9 years old. I picked up a couple items and will post them later, one piece was from Brazil and it was a beautiful pale colored calcite that glows pink under black light. I won it in a live auction for $45.00 and I got it for my wife. I told her that I had to get something as beautiful as she is, I need brownie points when I am at fossil shows. There was a ton of Fossil Forum members at the show and it was great to see them. I will let Rich @stats tag others, I forget all of the avatar names. Here are a few pics-

I am getting some fossils together to take to the ESCONI Braceville Shaft Mine trip that is running this Saturday and Sunday. The fossils that are collected there are Mazon Creek flora and fauna. When I am able to make one of these trips, I always pick up the car with several buckets full of fossils that we dump out and allow the participants to take home. This time I’m bringing a bunch of Mazon Creek fossil’s, Ordovician fossils from St. Leon, Indiana, Mississippian fossils from Anna, Illinois, Pliocene / Pleistocene shells from Florida, some echinoids and shark teeth from Morocco, a couple small Meg teeth from South Carolina (?), cephalopods from Graf, Iowa, some Pennsylvanian fossils from Oglesby, Illinois and maybe some other odds and ends that I do not recall. Here are a couple quick pics as I was placing them in the car. @stats

This morning I drove out to Braceville, Illinois to meet a group of ESCONI (Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois) members for one of the annual Braceville Shaft Mine trips to collect Mazon Creek concretions. The temp at 7:45 am was a brisk 45 degrees, but warmed up quickly. As in past visits, I brought 7 buckets of fossils so the leaders could dump out for the participants. On this trip I brought opened Mazon Creek concretions, Pliocene shells and some dugong bones from Florida, Echinoids from Morocco, Pennsylvanian, Ordovician and Mississippian hash plates and some other miscellaneous fossils. I only spent 1 hour at the site, for the purpose of taking pictures. I know that there were Fossil Forum members present, but alas, I do not know the tag names. I do know that Rich @stats was there, but we did not see each other. At 8:00 am people who have attended this trip before began to walk the 1/4 mile in to the collecting area. Others stayed by the cars for a quick tutorial on the area and what they are going to look for as well as the rules for visiting this Private area. Here are some pics of the area and the approximate 50 participants that attended today's trip and there will probably be that many tomorrow. CONTINUED ON NEXT POST-

Today was the 2nd day of the ESCONI Braceville Shaft Mine Trip to collect Mazon Creek concretions. I was not able to go yesterday since I did not arrive back from Puerto Rico until later that night. I did want to make it out today because I had a number of buckets of fossils (Mazon Creek flora and fauna, Indiana and Kentucky Ordovician has plates and loose horn Coral / bryozoan, Moroccan echinoids and Pleistocene/Pliocene shells) to dump out for the participants. I was not sure that the trip was going to go on due to rain, but I did receive a PM from @stats Rich advising me that it was on. I had contacted him before I left for vacation and advised him that I had some buckets that I wanted to dump. Rich and others also had fossils that were dumped yesterday and today. Even though there was quite a bit of rain in the morning, there were a number of ESCONI members who showed up for some fun in the mud, and it was muddy today. I did not stay to do any collecting due to the fact that my wife wanted me to go grocery shopping- lol. If you live in the area you should join ESCONI, you would love going on this trip that is held on two different weekends during the year. Here are a couple pictures that I took while I was at the site. The muddy walk in- Collectors on the hill- Participants going through the “dump pile” of fossils.

Tomorrow I will be heading out on my first ESCONI trip. I will keep you guys updated on what we find!

The ESCONI fall field trip to Braceville, IL will be on September 14th and 15th, 2019. Come on out and stock up on Mazon Creek concretions to freeze and thaw this winter. We have two Braceville field trips each year, one in the spring and one in the fall. There is space to 50 people in each day. You do need to be a member of ESCONI to attend. That is a simple process on our website using PayPal. Send an email to fossil54@att.net to reserve a place! All the details are here: https://www.esconi.org/esconi_earth_science_club/2019/08/esconi-field-trip-to-braceville-il-for-mazon-creek-concretions-september-14th-and-15th-2019.html Cheers, Rich

Today I went on a dual club field trip (Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois and Rock River Valley Gem and Mineral Society) to an Ordovician aged quarry in Roscoe, Illinois. It was a hot day for fossil hunting, but a cool breeze kept things refreshing. There were over 20 people on the trip and everyone was finding fossils of some sort. Some pictures of the quarry.

This morning I left the house early to drive out to the Braceville Shaft Mine in Braceville, Illinois to drop off 6 buckets of open Mazon Creek concretions so the 50 or so members of ESCONI could take anything that caught their eye. Today is the first trip to the Shaft Mine this year for ESCONI and the members are going to have great weather. Unfortunately for me, I only did a drop and run since I have to work today. Other FF members like Rich @stats also brought buckets to dump for the participants to go through. Rich along with two other ESCONI members run the trips out to Braceville. Besides Mazon Creek fossils, I also brought Mississippian hash plates from Anna and Vienna, Illinois, Pennsylvanian hash plates from Oglesby, Illinois, Ordovician hash plates from Lawrenceburg and St. Leon, Indiana. In addition to the hash plates, I brought Pliocene shells and coral from Florida, shark teeth pans echinoids from Morocco, brachiopods and crinoid stems from St. Leon, dugong bones from Sarasota, Florida and a real pretty Turritella gastropod piece from Wyoming. I place the hash plates on the dirt path to the collecting area so people can see them. The kids and adults get excited when they notice the pieces and that they contain fossils. Here are some of the participants listening to one of the leaders for instructions on safety and what to look for. The walk down the dirt path can be and was muddy due to recent rains, but it should make a great day for collecting. It was difficult to roll 5 gallons buckets down the path with a mini dolly, I am glad others had a wagon to help out. Here are some general pics that I took before I left for the day. If you ever have a chance to go on one of these trips, you will not be disappointed.

@Raggedy Man posted this a few years ago. I have always wanted to visit this quarry. Does anyone know how the quarry currently operates ? Does ESCONI have any trips planned there? Now that I am retired, I am at liberty to visit about any time!!!!! Just need to know how. Posted June 1, 2016 (edited) Many people have expressed interest in hunting the Waldron at the St.Paul Stone Quarry, but due to not being involved with a club access is denied.....or is it? It is my pleasure to announce major changes in access to this bucket list quarry. *Update and Changes* Instead of organized club trips on Fridays, a series of Saturday open collecting opportunities have been initiated. At this time, there are two dates available with more possibly to follow. Those dates are: May 21st(past) and July 16th. Those interested in collecting need to show up at the quarry office between 7:30 am and 8:00 am (Eastern Time) to sign waivers and probably receive on-site training

To day I stopped by the ESCONI Rock / Fossil and Gem Show that was held today and again tomorrow at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, Illinois. It is a nice little show and a great way to start the Spring season. In my opinion, the show was a little smaller than last year, but that did not stop the people from coming to seen what was for sale and to look at displays of nice fossils. The ESCONI Show is a free show, no entrance fee and no parking fee. When you enter, you are greeted from members of Esconi who will give you a ticket for a door prize. Throughout the day, they draw numbers and the lucky winners get to pick an item from the prizes that they have offered. As usual, I pass my ticket onto a lucky youngster who hopefully will win one of the goodies. This year I donated over 1000 Moroccan Echinoids and a large box full of Ordovician Hash Plates that I collected from St. Leon and Lawrenceburg Indiana. All of the fossils were given to a person who was handling the Kids Corner section. This is a great spot for kids to go and get fossils, I believe many are free or at a very cheap price. Throughout the day they also run silent auctions and you can get some nice stuff for for a couple dollars. They also have better items that they Auction off in a "Live Auction" format. This year, like last, they had some great Mazon Creek fossils and some really cool looking minerals. See below-

Today I went on the E.S.C.O.N.I. (Earth Science Club Of Northern Illinois) fossil collecting trip for Mazon Creek concretions to the Braceville Shaft Mine in Braceville, Illinois. It was a great day for the trip since it had rained recently and exposed a lot of concretions that made surface collecting great, that coupled with great overcast skies and temps in the upper 60's. It was a great day had by all and there must have been hundreds of concretions collected. Here is are a couple Aerial shots of the Shaft Mine. We met at 8 am and most people stayed until 2 pm. Most of the participants, about 40, have been to this site before and new what they were looking for. It great to see people drive as far away as Wisconsin and leave with some nice concretions. A couple hours into collecting, buckets of open concretions were dumped out so the participants could search through the pile and pull out what ever caught their fancy. I brought 3 bucket full of stuff to dump and Rich @stats brought a bucket full and I believe one other person brought some. Here are people from the group searching for some open concretions- there were concretions from Braceville, Pit 11(Essex Biota) and Pit 4 (Braidwood Biota) in the pile. It was great to meet Rich and a couple other Fossil Forum members-Ben @deutscheben and @Lisa102 or as she calls herself "Mud Girl"- . I know that their were other members in attendance, but I am notoriously bad at names and I apologize in advance. I usually never get in pictures, but I thought why not today- it was good day. Here I am with Rich @stats I am the one with the Snoopy bandana- I usually wear that on most fossil trips, but always backpacking, it is like a good luck charm. Here I am with Ben @deutscheben . Here is Lisa @Lisa102 , you can see why she calls herself "Mud Girl"- I give her huge "Props", she was always high up on the spoil pile and collecting some really nice concretions. I know this is Andy, but do not know his FF Tag. I am now going to group the rest of my pictures into 3 topics and I will start with pictures of the area. If you look at the first 2 pics, you can see pieces of boards sticking out, these are remnants of the mine (late 1890's ?) and maybe some trackways the were used by mules to pull out carts. One member found a horseshoe today that would have belonged to a mule. In years past, I also found similar horseshoes and old bottles. You get to the top by going up these gullies. It is important to look for concretions as you go up, because the rain causes them to roll down from the top- it is as just important to look for them on the way down, since a different perspective reveals more.

This past Saturday I was finally able to join ESCONI on one of their quarry field trips, this time to the Vulcan Manteno Quarry in Kankakee County, Illinois. After a relatively quick jaunt up I-57, I arrived at the quarry along with about 20 other enthusiasts, all clad in hard hats and neon safety vests. It is still an active quarry, although no mining was happening on that day, so the manager went over the rules with everyone- no climbing the rock piles, no getting too close to the high wall or the edge of the pit. Then we car-pooled down to the bottom of the quarry. The quarry exposes the Silurian Racine Dolomite Formation, and pile after pile of grey to orange colored rock was arranged on the quarry floor. It was hard to know where to start, so everyone wandered off to poke around and see what they could find. I didn't find much to begin, but after a little while I started noticing some interesting shapes, and within about an hour I had filled my bucket. I say "shapes", because I am not as familiar with this deposit as Mazon Creek, so my IDs for most of these only get as specific as "cephalopod" or "crinoid"- and in many cases more like "round organic-looking thing" . At the designated time everyone began heading back to the cars as a light drizzle came down- we only had about an hour and a half, but like I said, that was plenty of time to fill a 5 gallon bucket. It was an excellent trip, and I have to thank ESCONI and Vulcan for making it happen- I will definitely be signing up for the next one! My most interesting find is two associated partial impressions of echinoderms- the field trip leader suggested the one on the right was from Caryocrinites but he was not sure about the one on the left. I also found another small echinoderm piece, perhaps the base of a crinoid calyx?

Esconi was having their semi annual Mazon Creek fossil dig the weekend of September 10th. I joined with a 3 year membership, which I feel is a steal at only 50 dollars. By being a member you get access to this dig in Braceville as well as others. It was raining the night before the dig, and there were a couple spotted showers in the few hours we were there, but mostly just cloudy. We all met up at a gas station nearby, and then drove to the site. I made the bad decision of thinking I would just throw bug spray on when we get to the site. Definitely make sure you put bug spray on before you start the trek to the site as it is about 3 blocks and infested with mosquitos. The road is all dirt, and after a heavy rain was quite muddy. My wife and daughter both lost shoes while trying to get to and back from the spoil pile. The nice thing about this site is it great for people of all ages, although, the walk back with your fossils can be a bit rough for some as I helped an older gentleman carry his bucket back as he was having trouble. It should be noted that this is private property, and you will be arrested if going there without the club.

I recently spent about 10 hours surface collecting in pit 11 on the south unit of the Mazon-braidwood state wildlife area and honestly didn't have much success. I'm wondering if anyone knows when Esconi plans to have their first outing to the private pile in Braceville?