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  1. On Sunday, I finally went again the Mazon Creek and later a Bond Formation rock formation of Pennsylvanian age, around 300 Million Years ago, in Braidwood, Illinois and Oglesby, Illinois with three friends after some scheduling adjustments. The trip was awesome and we collected a pretty impressive fossil haul. At Mazon Creek, We mainly hunted for fossils around the shores of local power plant cooling pond (which despite apparently having water temperatures that day of 100 degrees Celsius, still had a decent amount of birds resting on-top). We saw also a large rock pile on the other side of the lake, which we tried to get to on foot, but after an hour of walking decided to head back and try our luck next time. We then went to Oglesby. I'm still cleaning most of the Mazon Creek fossils, so for now I'll be showing my and my friends findings from the Oglesby site. It was pretty hot and got a little cut up on the rocks, but the fossil haul collected was awesome!!! Small jumping spider we found at the Oglesby site. A piece of either coral or Brachiopod one of my friends found in Oglesby. Anyone got an ID for this specimen? Pretty Impressive Crinoid Stems collected as part of the day's Oglesby fossil haul!!! But this next specimen is probably one of my favorites from this recent fossil haul. It's a partial Ctenacanthiform tooth tip (Possibly Gilkmanius sp.) on a limestone slab with some brachiopod fossils also attached (of which I put it recently under a dissecting scope). Based on the thickness and size of the tooth, the shark it came from must of been a pretty decent sized animal when alive!!! A pretty descent Neospirifer brachiopod specimen!!! This next specimen was truly an unexpected find for myself as I've seen a Ctenacanthiform tooth from the bond like this in person before (most I've collected and heard about are of a black coloration where this is a mixture of black, grey, and brown). I must say it's very beautiful and definitely from a Ctenacanthiform shark!!! But I'm curious as to what Ctenacanthiform species it could've come from? Any thoughts on its ID you guys?
  2. econ23

    Mazon Creek - Fossil ID

    Hi all, I have been collecting at Mazon Creek for several years, but I have not run into anything like this. This particular example was collected in September of 2020, but I just recently got around to freeze-thawing. Any suggestions on what it could be, if anything at all? Thanks! Ethan
  3. Anomotodon

    Mazon Creek mysteries

    Hey everyone! Here are two of my findings from the most recent trip to pit 11 (Mazonia-Braidwood) that just opened. I would very appreciate any help with ID! 1. This is a worm-shaped structure that I don't think is a polychaete - I am not seeing any segmentation or jaws. The "gap" at the apex (closer to the center of the concretion) seems like some kind of a structure and at the base of it there seem to be some grains concentrated in a circle (see microscope pics). My working hypothesis is a barnacle, Illilepas damrowi, with the "gap" being a slit between the valves? Sorry for the lack of scale, still in search of my ruler. The fossil itself is about 2.5 cm long. Close-up of the slit. 2. I have absolutely no idea what this could be, but the shape seems defined enough to potentially be recognizable. Is this a plant bit? A segment from some arthropod? The fossil itself is only 5 mm. My first thought was a trilobite hypostome, but those obviously cannot be found in Mazon Creek deposits.
  4. Nimravis

    Mazon Creek Insect ID

    I was going through some pieces from a long time ago and am looking to see if anyone has an ID on these two pieces- each one is on 1/2, I do not have the other half. This first piece I think it a partial Roachoid, what do you think? This next piece is small and I am thinking that I am seeing an insect wing, what do you think? @RCFossils @stats @connorp
  5. 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.
  6. I have been gradually splitting the concretions that I collected this May with the ESCONI. I have not found anything earth shattering, but it is addictive. I go down to the freezer each day or two and see what is ready to open. The first three photos are from a 5 cm flat/oval concretion , and the last is from a small 1.2 cm circular concretion I am quessing that these are cnidarians, but any and all help will be well appreciated.
  7. CrustaceousBaki

    Nymph? Mazon Creek ID

    The first one is incredibly small and was really hard to photograph so I apologize for the quality. Looks like some kind of arthropod to me, like an insect nymph? On the last picture of it I circled what appears to be antennae. It’s was really hard for me to capture that on camera but it’s much more prevalent in person. Second seems to be some type of flora? But I think it’s poorly preserved and I’m not sure if it can be identified. Any opinions are appreciated. Thanks.
  8. CrustaceousBaki

    Polychaete? Mazon creek

    This one opened today and looks a little funky. I’m guessing worm. Any thoughts?
  9. I was very lucky to go with the Esconi fossil club this May to collect Mason Creek concretions. I want to thank every member of that club for help and friendliness to a stranger. I brought back a number of concretions. This one certainly has something in it, but it is not complete and I have no idea what it is ( or isnt). All help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated
  10. CrustaceousBaki

    Mazonova helmichnus? Mazon creek

    Ok I’m pretty sure this is a reach but I’m gonna keep thinking about it until I get clarification. Could this be Mazonova helmichnus? I very highly doubt it is and I’m pretty sure it’s just mineralization but I’d like to know in the off chance it is. Thanks!
  11. CrustaceousBaki

    Mazon creek ID

    I’m sorry these photos are probably awful cause my phone quality is awful lol. But I had a few small concretions from mazon creek that opened today and these two im having trouble identifying. 1st reminds me of an egg case but I highly doubt it. It kinda looks like coprolite too. 2nd a bivalve of sorts?
  12. Anomotodon

    2023 Mazon Creek trips

    Hey everyone! Haven't posted here in a while, and thought I would come back with a trip report. Recently I became interested in Mazon Creek fossils - something unusual for me as a vertebrate person. I finally managed to get out in the field this spring and visit the Mazonia-Braidwood State Park and the Braceville spoil pile through an ESCONI trip. I have collected at quite a few Paleozoic sites before, but this was my first time hunting in the Carboniferous! I went to Mazonia with a friend on a weekend in early April, when there was no foliage and it was sunny outside. I read a lot of threads about Mazon Creek on this forum and we decided to go straight through the bushes to search for the most inaccessible areas we could find. Here are a few concretions. Sadly, both of these turned out to be empty Also found a first Pennsylvanian garter snake Here is our total haul for ~4 hours. The only non-Essexella thing we found already open was this coprolite (?). By the way - if you see any errors with identification in this thread please correct me, I'm still learning a lot about this awesome deposit. Then came the freeze-thaw. I decided to cheat a little and use the -80C freezer in the lab I work in, which shortens the freezing part of the cycle to a few hours. At this point, most of the concretions from this trip have already opened: My nicest and largest Essexella ascherae. Another Essexella (after vinegar). When it opened, I first thought it was some arthropod segment, but I like it anyways. This one is weird. Coprolite? Probably nothing (?), but the pyrite is pretty. A plant of some kind, probably not identifiable. And my favorite find: I believe this is the apex of a Calamites sp. - segments are clearly visible. This concretion didn't want to open for over a month, so I got frustrated and dropped it from the 4th floor of my building as I didn't have a hammer with me... Don't do that.
  13. As many of you know I recently bought a Mazon Creek collection from my friend of mine that I have known and collected with for the past 30+ years. Along with the fossils was a lot of his paperwork on the fossils- not where they were found, etc., but pictures and times that he loaned specimens to museums. One specimen was a winged insect that he had loaned to a person from Harvard (Museum of Comparative Zoology- MCZ). Bob did not have a picture of the fossil and kind of thought it was a dragonfly. This person had visited the Mazon Creek Open House that was held on October 27th, 1984, at Northeastern Illinois University, which was the home of the Mazon Creek Project. Bob had brought the fossil to show other collectors and probably to get an id. The person asked if she could borrow it for study at Harvard and he agreed and “loaned” it to her and later received a receipt for the fossil and personal letter from her. That was the last time he had ever heard anything about the fossil. This has always been a sore subject with Bob and he would mention it all of the time, and that is why I have always been turned off to loaning any specimens. A couple months back I told Bob that I was going to reach out to Harvard and see if they could tell me anything about the fossil, since it was never returned. I sent a nice e-mail to them along with PDFs of the receipt and letter. About two weeks later, I received an email response from a Curatorial Associate at MCZ Harvard. She advised me that they looked at all of their Mazon creek fossils and could not find a particular fossil that I was describing with the information and # that I had for the specimen. Mind you, the receipt had a number assigned to it as well as what it was, as far as their identification (Spanidoera). She did send me an attachment, that contained all of their fossils from Mazon Creek. She further advised me, that after the person that borrowed it left Harvard, she went to another school to get her PhD and then advised me where she might be currently working. I thanked her for the information and that she advised me that they will continue to keep an eye out for the fossil. I then did some more searching, and I actually found the person that I had been looking for and an email address for her. I sent her an email and attached the same email that I sent to Harvard and I expounded by stating that I was Bob‘s friend and that he has talked about this for the past 25 years. She got back to me and stated that she was on vacation and when she arrives home, she would look through some of her old boxes from MCZ, but also stated that it could be in the MCZ Collection , but hard to locate. I thanked her and waited for a response. She got back to me on Wednesday and advised me that she was going to go through the boxes over the weekend. A couple of hours later I received a follow-up e-mail from her advising me that the had found the fossil and it matched up with the number that was assigned to it. I was so happy. I asked her to send me some pictures of it, which she did. She sent a very nice email, apologizing and say that she did not know why she did not return it after she left MCZ and thought maybe she was going to do a paper on it, or something else, but she did not remember. Either way, it was great that she went through her stuff and found this piece. She mailed the fossil out to me on Friday and I received it this evening. I have not let Bob know, as I want to drive to his house and show it to him and then let him know what it is. She also included a nice letter that I will present to him. I advised her that I will send her a picture of Bob holding the fossil. I know what many people are thinking, why did he not check on the fossil before? All I can say is that is how Bob is, he loaned it and just figured it was lost, although it always bothered him. In addition, he does not have a computer and since I had the receipt and letter, something that I did not know he had in the past, I decided to play detective. If I had known about the letter and receipt, I would have handled this decades ago. Now for pictures of the fossil. This piece was not freeze/thawed by Bob, as most of his fossils were. Looking at it, I can tell that he found it opened in the field. One side has great detail, if he had found it when it first opened, it would have been outstanding. Still this is a great looking piece, and in my opinion, large for an insect. If anyone has an ID, pass it on please. As stated above the woman who borrowed it listed it as “Spaniodera”. I am wondering if it is from the family Geraridae?
  14. I officially got notice that my Belotelsonid and trace fossil cf. Protovirgularia dichotoma were accepted into collections at the Indiana State Museum!
  15. 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.
  16. Sauropod19

    Mazon Pit 11 ID

    Hello again. I got the time to scrub off my finds from Friday and found one of interest (and a second that I haphazardly split open that I think is a dud). The top one’s shape remained after several rounds of intense scrubbing, and feels slightly 3D in the middle. Other views of top one: Is there anything in the top one or is it just suggestive mineral staining? Additionally, since there is a crevice present around the entire perimeter, would you recommend I try and pry it open or leave the concretion as is? Lastly, just so I can document the correct number of concretions collected on my permit, which of these four examples (if any) would you consider to be a concretion or half concretion. “a” and “d” are extremely thin, both likely part of the outer “shell” of a concretion. “b” is just an odd shape, and “c” is thick but flat. As always, thank you!
  17. Hello. I’m currently at Mazon and after about 1 1/2 hours of intermittent hiking and searching, I found a hillside that seems to be rife with concretions. I’m somehow lucky enough to have a tiny bit of cell service. I am concerned, however, that I have stumbled upon someone’s discard pile rather than a concretion gold mine. Most of the 100+ concretions were found either on the surface or very slightly embedded in the soil within a 30 foot radius, and most have jagged edges and are only half a concretion. A couple have even been larger than my hand. As such, I know it is difficult to tell without being here, but is it more likely that I’ve found an area where concretions have been exposed and opened naturally or have I stumbled upon someone’s recent search area? Thank you! P. S. I brought these together in one pile from around to demonstrate the majority of my finds. In situ: Large:
  18. Tom16

    Mazon Creek Fossil ID Help

    Hello, I opened/cleaned off some nodules I had collected recently and I am unsure if they are fossils or just formations of how the rock separated. Thank you in advance for your time. Also, if anyone has any recommendations on fossil books, that would be appreciated. 1) I am not sure if my eyes are lying to me or not but I see what could be a shrimp. I see the formation of a shrimp body. Also what appear to be two eyes and a nose. Again, maybe I am just seeing what I want to see. 2) Not really sure what this could be. I did not think it was anything at first but then I opened another nodule (3) and saw the same formation. Possible bivalve? 3) Same as 2
  19. Hello, While searching for concentrations in Mazon Creek, IL, I discovered you can find Crinoid stems in rocks around the area. I have found a few of those but recently I found a couple that are similar but not as easily identifiable. Below are the two samples in question. Thank you for your time and assistance with the IDing. 1) This sample is very similar to the type of rock I find the Crinoid stems in. Seems to be like fossilized coral with the holes. Specifically, I am looking at the spiral with a bump in the center. I think that is an impression of a Crinoid stem that was there before but not sure? 2) This sample is a different kind of rock it seems. It is lighter in color and has some sparkles in it. The feature in question is the 'flower bud' type formation I see in the top center of the rock. It is smooth and it has depth. Compared to how the rest of the rock is rough, I have to imagine this is something different.
  20. AnomalyShrimp

    Mazon Creek circular nodule ID

    Hello! A couple weeks ago my family and I drove to Mazon Creek and found our first nodules. I was keeping my eye out for the tell-tale round layered shale, and picking up already split ones too. I also saw a similar thread posted recently, just want to confirm if these are indeed duds or not! Most of the finds are about 3cm #1, The most intriguing one to me #2 #3, all of them together to show frequency and variety of circle pattern Thank you very much for reading!
  21. Misha

    Peachocaris strongi

    From the album: Misha's Carboniferous

    Peachocaris strongi Crustacean Mid Pennsylvanian Francis Creek Shale Mazon Creek Lagerstätte Illinois
  22. Misha

    Essexella asherae

    From the album: Misha's Carboniferous

    Essexella asherae Cnidarian Mid Pennsylvanian Mazon Creek Lagerstätte Illinois
  23. We are slowing finding a few things in our freeze/thaws! Please help ID the six posted below. I am very much a novice on this so my guesses are likely not right, but I tried. 1 & 2: Annularia type? Second pic is how it is also visible from the other plane! It didn't split well, whatever was on top of it crumbled off in the freeze/thaw cycle instead of coming off as a smooth plane so I unfortunately don't have the other half. 3. Probably nothing? I think it's just an unusual fracture, kids are convinced it's more. 4. Coprolite? No clue. 5. Stepanospermum konopeonus? 6. Love this tiny fern! So hard to figure out what kind it is though. Help please! 7. Could this be a caulopteris? THANK YOU!
  24. Oxytropidoceras

    Is the Tully Monster a vertebrate?

    New details of Tully monster revealed 3D scanning of enigmatic fossil may have brought an end to debate about whether it is a vertebrate or invertebrate University of Tokyo, Nature, April 17, 2023 70-Year-Old Mystery Over Bizarre 'Tully Monster' May Finally Have Been Solved Science Alert, April 18, 2023 The paywalled paper is: Tomoyuki Mikami, Takafumi Ikeda, Yusuke Muramiya, Tatsuya Hirasawa, Wataru Iwasaki, Three-dimensional anatomy of the Tully monster casts doubt on its presumed vertebrate affinities, Palaeontology: April 17, 2023, doi:10.1111/pala.12646. Yours, Paul H.
  25. CrustaceousBaki

    Mazon Creek ID help

    Earlier this week I had 2 concretions pop open that I weren’t too sure of what they were. Number one has the calcite desiccation cracks that are consistent with Achistrum sp. I guess the shape is what is kind of throwing me off, and the body seems to segmented, which reminded me of a millipede. Number 2 I cant really see any discernible features in it at all but if I had to guess a type of a polychaete worm? Anyway I’m gonna leave this to the experts lol. Any help is appreciated!
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