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For you viewing pleasure, here are a couple pictures that I took at a friends house showing the Pit 11 area and the type of machines used.

Today I decided to take a Personal Day today and head down to the cooling lakes and do a little fossil collecting at Pit 11, I was only out for about 2 1/2 hours. The day was cool, 37 degrees and with a 13 mph wind, it made the “feels like” temp 30 degrees. Luckily, I was collecting in a bowl like depression at the top of a high ridge, so I did not feel the wind and I only needed a light hoodie to stay warm. Pit 11 is no way near what it use to be. Back then there was no vegetation and the concretions were easily found. After the reclaiming of the land and reseeding, it has made this collecting a real jungle. The area that I was collecting today is an area that I will not collect in the Summer. By that time the leaves will be on the Flora and the ticks and other insects will be out. It is not so much the ticks, but when all of the leaves are on, you can not see the ground and maneuvering around makes it extremely difficult. Here are some pictures of the area that I was collecting today. I parked my car on the road near the parking lot for Monster Lake. A pic of my car, taken on top of a hill. Collecting area- Yes, it is rough to collect at this spot, but that is why I like it. The harder the spot is to get too, the less likely people hit it.

Greetings! My grand daughter and I are planning a trip to Chicago in May. And we were excited to locate a place close to Chicago to hopefully find a fossil or two to take home with us. We have no idea what we are doing, only that we want to do this. We are looking for someone who is experienced and knowledgeable about Mazon Creek. If this is you, please contact me via PM. Thank you

Current forecast is perfect – rain all weekend but sunny and clear on Monday. Fingers crossed it stays that way! Hope to see some of you out there.

Over the Summer I conducted research in Illinois so naturally I spent as much time as I could collecting fossils. I had a particular interest in collecting Mazon Creek concretions. I had the fortune of making one trip to the area once over a decade ago but that was short and I didn't collect any Essex stuff. Because of that I focused in on Pit 11 this time. Summer may not be the best time for collecting there but my time in Illinois was limited and going in summer beats not going at all. Over the summer I persistently traveled to Pit 11 from Urbana 5 or 6 times. Most of the concretions are now open and I figured I'd share some of the better specimens I collected. First some worms, a nice Didontogaster cordylina and the better of two Dryptoscolex matthiesae.

Hi all, I've been working on the pit 11 concretions I collected this summer and some difficult identifications have piled up. These might not be preserved enough to be identifiable but they seem preserved decently enough that some people might have a better idea for identification. Any help is appreciated. Measurements are the lengths of the fossil and not the concretion. The first fossil measures 30 mm across. This seems like it's probably just a weird shrimp molt? Fossil #2 measures 15 mm across. I don't hold out much hope for this one as it's rather broken up and lacks detail but it superficially resembles a Dithyrocaris sp. carapace. Fossil #3 is quite possibly not a fossil at all but the texture and color difference in the concretion is distinct enough to consider the possibility. It is 20 mm tall and 15 mm wide at widest point.

Hi all, this is one of the polychaete worms from the batch of Pit 11 concretions I'm working on. From what I can see of the conical jaws it most closely resembles Didontogaster corydylina but the jaws blend a bit together and aren't as distinct as some other specimens I've found. The body profile seems a little off (no swollen front section for one) so I wanted to ask for second opinions. Am I getting too hung up on the profile of a body that could just be more outstretched? I appreciate everyone's thoughts.

Hello all, I have been a long time lurker of the forum (simply reading has been helpful enough these years) but have finally decided to request identification help on some fossils. I spent the summer conducting research in Illinois and spent my spare time collecting fossils. I was fortunate enough to collect Mazon Creek fossils about 14 years ago on a trip so I was thrilled to finally return to the area and collect at the Mazonia Braidwood Fish and Wildlife Unit. I have Key to Identify Pennsylvanian Fossil Animals of The Mazon Creek Area as well as Jack Wittry's The Mazon Creek Fossil Flora and these have been very helpful in identifying specimens but this one has thrown me a bit. As for the fossil, it resembles an arthropod appendage (like a Eurypterid walking leg) but I might be blinded by my wishing it to be that. I appreciate any help and insight from people more experienced with Mazon Creek. I will likely post more unidentified material from Illinois and Missouri soon. Thanks for your time. -Tom

Probably not anything that is able to be ID’d but the “eye” spots make me wonder if it is something worthwhile.

Next weekend we will be in Marblehead, Ohio visiting my sisters. I had hoped to stop at St Paul, Indiana on the way to look for some fossils. Unfortunately the quarry does not allow visitors at this point due to Covid. My thought then was to consider Mazon. About a month ago, a post was made similar to this one. It was suggested not to visit due to the ticks and other creepy crawlers. Are the critters still a problem??? Does covid close this park too?? I am all ears to suggestions. Thanks!! If this is not a good choice, there is always the go to Paulding, Ohio!!!! Mike

Who is going to be heading out to Mazonia-Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife area for the start of the Pit 11 fossil hunting season on Sunday? They are forecasting a high of 58 degrees right now, practically t-shirt weather! (but watch out for those ticks) I am planning to be there Sunday and Monday, my first time trying two consecutive days. I hope to run into some other fine forum members out there.

Hi, my kids and I are completely new to this, would love some help. Also if there is a paleontology version of "Let Me Google That For You", or Fossil ID for Dummies, etc., we'll gladly take those too! We found this one in Pit 11 of Mazon Creek a few weeks ago, on an eroded slope under heavy shrub cover. It was found as-is (exposed), this was not inside a nodule. The rock is harder than the sandstone of the nodules. To my untrained eye it looks like debris in pond muck: snail shells, and a twig. I found a very similar fossil last summer on a rocky beach of Lake Michigan, though much more worn down and polished.

Hi, my kids and I are completely new to this, would love some help. Also if there is a paleontology version of "Let Me Google That For You", or Fossil ID for Dummies, etc., we'll gladly take those too! We found this one in Pit 11 of Mazon Creek a few weeks ago, on an eroded slope under heavy shrub cover. It was cast in a concretion/nodule that we exposed through freezing and thawing. The nodule was already broken, so we do not have the whole fossil. To my untrained eye it looks like a fish tail (my 8 year old is convinced it is the claw of a Tully monster, of course). Can anyone make it out?

Anyone out there have any Tully Monsters they would be willing to trade. Partials ok. PM if you want.

This first piece is a Mazon Creek fossil from Pit 11. Any help appreciated !! The second one is from the Creek itself, could this be a "fiddlehead" @fiddlehead . Thanks for looking !! Thanks, Phil

I wanted to join the squad of great Mazon ID threads we have had in the last week. These two were found split on my opening day trip to Mazonia-Braidwood/Pit 11. I only found half of the first one. It doesn't look like much, and it may be nothing, but its worth asking! The second one was split, but both halves were present. It is much more clearly something, but I'm not sure what, as there are not any clear features, although it is preserved with good definition and a nice contrasting color.

Hi guys! Newbie here and finally joined so i could post this after our recent opening day trip to Mazon Creek, Mazonia-Braidwood and Pit 11. My daughter and I found this one and I can't tell if its nothing or something. Maybe an essexella asherae jellyfish? or maybe i'm dreaming. It was already split, we haven't done our freeze/thaw yet on the whole nodules yet. Seems we did manage to get at least two of the pieces that go together - could possibly have the last piece in the bucket still as we are still going through our haul, but after a preliminary look, I suspect this is all we have. I tried to get a few pics the best i could, but they now don't look as good as i thought. And I just read that using coins for scale is not a good idea - sorry. Hoping my Mazon experts out there will be more familiar with US currency, anyway. So - these are the same nodule from a few angles and one pic with the two pieces together. Any ideas? Or maybe it's nothing. I know i have a small one with annularia. This is one of the largest we found, so maybe it's just wishful thinking. After hours of looking at these things, i think i could see fossils in anything now. THANK YOU! (ok, now it's not letting me add my pics - too big.) I'll be back with the rest of them as soon as i figure out how to get the size down. Sorry!)

I only have a two of these but they are nice (to me anyway). They're Essexella asherae jellyfish from Pit #11, Francis Creek Shale, Braidwood, Illinois. Middle Pennsylvanian period. The first measures 3' x 2" and the second measures 2.75" 2.5".

This weekend I made my first trip out to Mazon Creek! Sorry this is such a scroller, I'm going to try and have this post be informational since there is definitely some stuff I wished I'd known about in advance and some stuff I did that really aided my success. There are pictures at the bottom. The most important thing I did before my trip was print off a topographic map of the area that I pulled from ArcGIS online. It really came in handy. It was also necessary to have a permit to collect there, something I only discovered the night before. Here is a link to a PDF of the permit. I drove down with a fellow UChicago student. We parked at the first lot off of WN5000 road from the Kankakee road side. Our plan was to use the topo map to find the steepest erosional surfaces to collect on. Initially this strategy seemed like a bust. In our first forty minutes we only found three concretions between us. I think that was because the area near the parking lot and WN5000 road was just really picked over. As we moved deeper into the brush, our finding rate increased. At some points we literally found piles of concretions, this was usually because they had landed in the roots of trees or come up against some other impediment. Our best finds were usually midway and above on the hills. Finds near the bottom of the hills tended to be weathered more extensively and were often fragmented. The concretions themselves were reddish and mostly about the size of half dollars, but larger and smaller ones were also abundant. Concretions found in sunny areas tended to have oxidized to a rusty orange color. We found fragments of some very large concretions, so those are out there, but the largest intact ones we found were about the size of a tea saucer. Many were also pre-split from weathering. We collected a fair number of these since they were covered in mud and it was hard to tell whether there might be a fossil or not. By the end of the afternoon we each had about 1/3rd of a 5 gallon bucket filled with concretions. We could easily have filled the buckets with an additional hour or two of effort, but we were pretty tired and satisfied with our success, so we called it a day. In terms of the environment, the terrain was very rugged and filled with dense brush. Open spaces were filled with burr plants to the point of absurdity. By the end of the day we looked like we had ghillie suits from the sheer quantity of vegetable matter clinging to our clothing (picture below). I recommend wearing long sleeves and pants to protect the skin, and selecting fabrics that burrs will not easily cling to. Additionally, there were lots of biting insects, but a quick spray of DEET solved that problem. I'm prepping the concretions by throwing them in the freezer. However, I'd appreciate it if somebody could link me to a post on the proper treatment, or enlighten me below- both for my own knowledge and for other readers. Photo of two of my pre split finds- the rest are in the freezer right now. (I think a polychaete worm on the bottom, and I have absolutely no clue what the thing on the top is) Our overall route (roughly) Concretions/concretion fragments in situ Me covered in burrs and looking like a dork

I am thinking that this is a Drevotella proteana, with, but not necessarily attached to, a Palaeolima retifera.

From a flat of specimens identified as from Pit 11. Mouth looks familiar as that of Achistrum, but no dessication cracks. Looking to confirm identification. Thanks! ~Paul

Coprolite?

From a flat of specimens identified as from Pit 11. Three dimensional. Small leaf? Thanks! ~Paul