5-7-23 ESCONI Braceville Shaft Mine Trip

[Nimravis]

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.

[Nimravis]

Here are some pics of people around the hill and some scenery shots.

 

 

 

 

 

m

 

 

 

 

 

Continued on next post-

[Nimravis]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A pic of Rich @stats

 

 

 

A picture of yours truly- I was not collecting, just going around and taking pictures.

 

 

Continued on next post.

[Nimravis]

Rich was digging and another ESCONI member (Gigi) started up, so I figured I would help out too.

 

 

 

 

 

All concretions I found I gave to Gigi- between the 3 of us we found some nice stuff. Here are pics of the concretions and some in situ in the shale. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nimravis]

 

 

 

Here are pics of the participants going through the buckets we dumped.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this little peak at a great trip- If you live in the northern Illinois area or even farther away, you should look at joining ESCONI and come on one of their trips, it is a lot of fun and you can meet some great people.

[CrustaceousBaki]

2 hours ago, Nimravis said:

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.

It was a great day out with great finds! Thanks again for everything.  those shrimps are amazing! 

[Nimravis]

53 minutes ago, CrustaceousBaki said:

It was a great day out with great finds! Thanks again for everything.  those shrimps are amazing! 

It was great to see you and I am glad you liked them.

[stats]

Great post, Ralph!  Good to see you today.   Here are pictures of @connorp, @flipper559, and @bigred97.  I'll post the videos of the fossil dumps after Youtube finished rendering them.

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

@bigred97... unfortunately, I think he turned away as I took the photo.

 

@connorp admiring a crinoid plate.

 

@connorp sneaking over a ridge...

 

@flipper559 with Nick Koba, author of a great history of coal mining in northern Illinois.  He worked in the strip mines for many years and has some incredible photos and stories in his book, ""Strip Mining History of Grundy, Will, and Kankakee Counties.  

[jpc]

fun trip.  

I hope that when you say you brought all sorts of fossils to 'dump', that  means you gave them away to other folks, rather than dumping Miocene bones in the Paleozoic piles in Illinois.  : )

 

[ClearLake]

Looks like a great time!  I've just got to get my timing right to make it on one of these trips, it will happen one day!

[Nimravis]

2 hours ago, jpc said:

fun trip.  

I hope that when you say you brought all sorts of fossils to 'dump', that  means you gave them away to other folks, rather than dumping Miocene bones in the Paleozoic piles in Illinois.  : )

 

All depends on what they take lol.

[deutscheben]

Thanks for the great report, Ralph.

 

Here are a couple of open concretions I found on Sunday:

 

Essexella

 

 

Shrimp parts:

 

 

A crushed bivalve:

 

[stats]

Fossil dump videos.  Enjoy!

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

Day 1

 

Day 2

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by stats

[Yoda]

@Nimravis

 

Looks like you had a fantastic trip 

[Nimravis]

Nice videos Rich @stats. I also failed to mention that some of the Mazon Creek pieces came from ESCONI member Marty H., he gives me stuff throughout the year for these trips.

[stats]

11 hours ago, Nimravis said:

Nice videos Rich @stats. I also failed to mention that some of the Mazon Creek pieces came from ESCONI member Marty H., he gives me stuff throughout the year for these trips.

I'll make sure to mention him in the upcoming report.

 

Thanks!

 

Cheers,

Rich