Mazon Hunting in Braceville sept 10th

[smt126]

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.

[smt126]

There was a nice gentleman who came with two 5 gallon buckets worth of mazon creek fossils that he share with the kids. These fossils weren't from this site, but from some of the fossils that were given to them. There is more from this trip at http://www.esconi.org/esconi_earth_science_club/2016/09/braceville-field-trip-report-fall-2016.html if you'd like to see more pictures of the site, and there's a video of the guy sharing the fossils with the kids.

[smt126]

The 5 gallon bucket are the nodules I managed to collect in the time we were there. There were a lot of nodules just sitting out on the surface from all the rain we had. The bigger ones were ones I had to dig more for. My daughter was busy collecting lots of coal, which is abundant there as you'll see from the 2nd pic. She has been wanting it ever since she found out it was fossilized trees. I will eventually get around to doing the freeze/thaw method, but I probably will wait until winter and let mother nature pay the costs of freezing the water over and over again. We also found 4 artifacts during our adventure- 3 bolts and a piece of metal from something. Overall it was quite the fun trip, and looking forward to trying out this site again next year.

[Fossildude19]

Looks like some happy kids and some nice finds.
Congratulations. 

Thanks for the report and pictures.. 

Regards,

[Herb]

nice report and nice finds. The mosquitos and the muddy road were a bear.

[deutscheben]

Thanks for the report! I look forward to hearing what you find once the freeze/thaw process starts. I was there on Sunday and the mosquitoes and mud were still pretty bad in the morning, although they cleared up as temperature rose. Instead of wandering around the pile like I have on previous trips, this time I concentrated on one spot I found on the spring trip that was producing lots of nodules, and I found enough to keep me busy over the winter.

[JohnBrewer]

Great report! You guys did well, nice family day out. $50 for three years, what a bargain