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Showing results for tags 'red dog shale'.
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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.
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- pennsylvanian
- herrin (no. 6) coal
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Today I drove 6 1/2 hours - 340 miles (Round trip) to meet up with about 20-25 other ESCONI ( Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois). This site visited was a shaft mine on private property and we were allowed to collect for 5 hours, making for a long day when you add in the drive time. I believe that the fossils found at this location are about 600,000 to 1 million years younger than the fossils found at Mazon Creek. If I am wrong, one of the Forum menders that were in attendance can correct me. As usual, I may miss a name, but here are some that I knew were present: @stats , @deutscheben , @flipper559 , @jdp . I had missed out on the trips to this location last year and really wanted to attend this year after seeing the pieces of bark that were found in the red dog shale that is found at this location as well as concretions. The red dog shale has the fossils baked into the shale as a result of a fire that occurred on the shat mine about 6 years ago. This pieces found are really pretty. This shaft mine was in operation from 1904 though 1946 and was owned by several different companies, including the Peabody Coal Company that ran the strip mining operation around Pit 11, etc. It was a hot day, first time this year we were in the 80’s and the wind was a constant 25 mph and gusts had to hit 35 mph. This post will be picture heavy and will most likely take a few posts. I will start with a lot of pictures of the area and the collectors, one I finish that, I will add pictures of my finds at the time that I found them. Most of my finds I did keep, since it was my first time there and I wanted a representation of the fossils found at the location. I know that some types of fauna can be found, but I only found flora, and most of that was bark, which I liked a lot more than ferns, etc. Now on with some pics- A pic of me- thanks @deutscheben
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- 11
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- shaft mine
- red dog shale
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