It's Summer And You Want To Go To Pit 11 For Mazon Creek Fossils

[stats]

11 hours ago, bigred97 said:

Rich, I saw an opossum on my last trip to Pit 11 in May also! I was walking north back to my car on the big trail that runs pretty much straight down from the parking lot to the bottom part of Monster Lake. I glanced to my left down a side path and there it was sitting there and looking at me. I put down my load of concretions and slowly tried to get out my phone to take a pic but he started running away down the path. So I got a blurry picture of an opossum's posterior on that trip!

 

I know there are deer all around, too, and found fresh tracks, but they steer well away from the heavy-tramping human coming their way. I also have found what I think must be coyote scat. I could tell it had to be a carnivore of some sort because of all the hair in it. When I got home I googled to make sure there aren't any bears in the area, but it sounds like Illinois no longer has a bear population.

Yes, you are correct, I should have said opossum.  We saw a dead beaver a few years ago.  It was on the path to the south end of Monster Lake.  It looked like something was preying on it, maybe coyote.  I always like when the frogs come out in the spring after it thaws.  It sounds like spring!

 

The opossum photo was taken to the north of the Tipple area.  Wanted to try new areas and people were talking about it here.  I didn't find much out that way, only a few small concretions.  It's so much more overgrown that the aerial shots show.  FWIW, the Tipple has always been a bust for me.

 

The whole place is really huge.  You don't really realize until you start walking around.  Anyone ever try along the Mazon River in Pit 14?  I'm tempted to try it sometime...

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

[Nimravis]

9 hours ago, stats said:

The whole place is really huge.  You don't really realize until you start walking around.  Anyone ever try along the Mazon River in Pit 14?  I'm tempted to try it sometime...

I have never collected there, but I do have black Shale with shark spines in it that came from Pit 14.

[Mark Kmiecik]

18 hours ago, stats said:

Anyone ever try along the Mazon River in Pit 14

Not familiar with Pit 14 location referenced as such. Is that the area around the Scouting Camp and north of it? If so, then yes I have but not the Scout land itself but many of the private properties north of there. That whole area is nearly devoid of fauna, but has historically produced some of the largest and best preserved flora. I would say that nearly 50% of my collection was collected from private property I had gained permission to search in that area, and the percentage of concretions containing fossils is near 80%, with excellent preservation. Neuropteris, Pecopteris and Annularia make up about 90% of the finds.

 

Also, here's a hint about getting permission to hunt private property. The first one is the hardest, but once you are in good standing with one landowner you can ask if they know if any of their neighbors might let you do the same on their land, and it can spread from one to the next easily as long as you treat the people and property with respect. People are quite willing to give a good reference if you deserve it.

 

And finally, I thought I'd throw this on the heap just for kicks. DNR should have a printed or printable version available.

 

[Nimravis]

@Mark Kmiecik what Pit was Dresden Lakes? I never hunted there, but I know large flora came from there. Also, Walter use to mention an area that they called “Goldblatts” like the discount store. They called it that because like Goldblatts, you could find anything there Do you know where that place was located? I forgot.

[connorp]

On 6/29/2019 at 11:41 AM, digit said:

    

I found one that looked similar to that when I was there. I hunted opening weekend and spent a solid half hour prying it out of the frozen ground as it looked so perfect. But when I got home I realized it wasn't a nodule. Felt more like a smooth river-tumbled rock.

[RCFossils]

2 hours ago, Nimravis said:

@Mark Kmiecik what Pit was Dresden Lakes? I never hunted there, but I know large flora came from there. Also, Walter use to mention an area that they called “Goldblatts” like the discount store. They called it that because like Goldblatts, you could find anything there Do you know where that place was located? I forgot.

I believe the "Goldblatts" area is across the street from what is now Cinder ridge Golf Course (Pit 1). It is completely overgrown and you would need heavy equipment to open an area to expose concretions.

[Nimravis]

7 minutes ago, RCFossils said:

I believe the "Goldblatts" area is across the street from what is now Cinder ridge Golf Course (Pit 1). It is completely overgrown and you would need heavy equipment to open an area to expose concretions.

Thanks- for the info- about 10-15 years ago Cinder Ridge personal let me and a couple other collect there while the we’re doing some type of maintenance.

[stats]

39 minutes ago, RCFossils said:

I believe the "Goldblatts" area is across the street from what is now Cinder ridge Golf Course (Pit 1). It is completely overgrown and you would need heavy equipment to open an area to expose concretions.

Across the street?  Do you mean across I-55?  I thought that was Pit 2.

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

[stats]

9 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

Mark,

 

I think the area near "MAZONIA ACCESS" is Pit 14.  The western part of Mazonia near the office.  Like @Nimravis said, I think it's known for black shale.  I have heard of people collecting concretions there, just not many details...

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

[digit]

9 hours ago, RCFossils said:

It is completely overgrown and you would need heavy equipment to open an area to expose concretions.

OK, who do we know who has access to a backhoe?

 

 

Sadly, (with rare exceptions) we now need to work for our concretions these days as we're well past the zenith of this Lagerstätte when mining activity was still occurring and concretions littered the surface. I've read some of the old accounts when a collector could just roam the tipple piles "shopping" for the best looking concretions. There was no freeze/thaw cycling--you just whacked the concretion with a rock hammer. If it split well and had something nice in it, you'd wrap it in newspaper and tuck it in your rucksack. If the concretion was empty or didn't split fortuitously, you just dropped it where you were and grabbed for the next concretion that caught your eye. It truly must have been halcyon days for those who had that opportunity.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Mark Kmiecik]

6 hours ago, digit said:

Sadly, (with rare exceptions) we now need to work for our concretions these days as we're well past the zenith of this Lagerstätte when mining activity was still occurring and concretions littered the surface. I've read some of the old accounts when a collector could just roam the tipple piles "shopping" for the best looking concretions. There was no freeze/thaw cycling--you just whacked the concretion with a rock hammer. If it split well and had something nice in it, you'd wrap it in newspaper and tuck it in your rucksack. If the concretion was empty or didn't split fortuitously, you just dropped it where you were and grabbed for the next concretion that caught your eye. It truly must have been halcyon days for those who had that opportunity.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

So true. Even in the early 90's you could still find spots on private property or back deep away from parking that were "littered" with concretions. This can still be the case wherever there is construction or the mined land is being reclaimed. Such was the case -- I believe it was in 2008 -- when the state of Illinois did land reclamation on about 80 (100? 120?) acres of land at Cinder Ridge Golf course. When they bulldozed the area flat there were literally three concretions per square yard on the surface and about the same beneath waiting to weather out. Within 3 months it had been picked clean and the area was seeded with ground cover and closed. If you look at it on Google Earth, it's that whole tan area in the middle with the golf course around the perimeter. If you can get permission from the owner of the golf course you can find some that have weathered or frost heaved to the surface in the last ten years. Not much in the way of fauna at that site, but the flora is well preserved, the concretions are high-percentage fossilferous, and the concretions are larger than average. I saw a guy pick up a 14" Alethopteris one second before I spotted it. I instead had to settle for the 12" Pecopteris about six inches to the right of it. At that site is where I found out that 9 five-gallon bukets overfilled with concretions is how much it takes to bottom out a Chevy Cavalier. Went there about six times over the course of three months and collected 27 buckets that were beyond full. 60 to 70% of the concretions from that location contained fossils.

 

Staying in tune with the community is the best way to learn when construction and reclamation will happen, and being the first one there helps a lot.

[Mark Kmiecik]

18 hours ago, Nimravis said:

@Mark Kmiecik what Pit was Dresden Lakes? I never hunted there, but I know large flora came from there. Also, Walter use to mention an area that they called “Goldblatts” like the discount store. They called it that because like Goldblatts, you could find anything there Do you know where that place was located? I forgot.

Dresden, I believe, is Pit 6. At any rate Dresden Lake lies directly north of Pit 6, other side of the road, literally. The area that is now Paradise Lakes was also a great place for large, well-preserved flora, both north and south of Pine Bluff. Not familiar with Goldblatt's, except for the retail outlet in Chicago itself where I did shop when young. It was located on the south side of Chicago avenue just west of Ashland avenue, but there were no fossils there.  I looked over the area around Dresden shortly after I started collecting but it was overgrown, flat, and yielded nothing. I saw the specimens that other ESCONI members had collected there back in their heyday and drooled. Drooled a lot, often. Cried occasionally.

 

I did get to hunt "Chowder Flats" just a bit west and a wee bit north of Morris which lived up to it's name. You would have loved it. Clams by the ton and enough jellies to make you sick of them. At least that was my impression from the one time I hunted there just before the development was completed and populated. Some of the homes had not yet been landscaped or sold and that's where I found the fossils, trying not to step foot on property that was already occupied by the owners. Ended up with one bucket almost full of 1" to 3" concretions.

 

Paradise Lakes is another one of the areas where I hunted on private property with the owners' permission. That started out one day at a McDonald's where I stopped to ask directions and grab a sandwich in Coal City and a landowner told me to forget where I was going and come to his property. I recounted this anecdote in another thread that you may remember. Well, to make a long story short, I started on this one property and pretty soon, by default and word of mouth, I had access to more than half of the development. Didn't get a lot of good stuff there as most of the concretions had been reburied during construction, but the few hundred I found were decent and the site was about 40-50% yield.

 

It really would be great if someone could convince those in state government that it would be worth developing the area specifically for fossil hunting for economic reasons as well as the knowledge to be gleaned from the fossils that will soon be reburied and probably permanently lost.

 

EDIT: Ralph, if you go to an ESCONI meeting I'm sure the old-timers there can tell us where the Goldblatt's site is.

[Mark Kmiecik]

16 hours ago, stats said:

Across the street?  Do you mean across I-55?  I thought that was Pit 2.

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

Probably was. Yes, across I-55 is Pit 2. Way back in the day, specific small areas of certain pits became well known for the species they would yield. So a one to five acre area of a pit that encompassed 200 acres would become known as "Chowder Flats" because it yielded lots of clams, jellies and other marine fossils. There is an area of about 3 acres that is part of pit 11 that I've heard called Jelly Jackpot. I've been there twice and of the 150 or so concretions I found, EVERY ONE of those that contained a fossil was a jellyfish. All Essexella asherae. A lot of these descriptive names for small parts of different pits arose as a code names used by avid collectors when speaking of where they went so as not to give away the exact location but still be understood by those who were part of the "in crowd". In some cases they became known as others would find them and "spill the beans" and they stuck as the name for those spots. Some collectors who had favorite spots to find tullymonsters, for instance, would walk a mile in the wrong direction in case they were being followed. A lot of spots had above average yields of rare specimens and their location, although open to anyone who went there, would be jealously guarded by those who were well-known as collectors who regularly and frequently found the rare stuff. I hunted mostly private property, so I would tell people exactly where I found my specimens because in most cases I had an unwritten agreement/understanding with the owner that I was the only one to hunt the property. I would tell others to go right ahead and hunt my spot -- all they needed was the owner's permission to do it. Most never tried to get permission. Some did and received it. Most of the properties were large enough that two or three collectors all out together on the same day might never see or hear each other while there, depending on where they parked their vehicles. Some spots were small enough to make two people a crowd. 

[jdp]

20 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

It really would be great if someone could convince those in state government that it would be worth developing the area specifically for fossil hunting for economic reasons as well as the knowledge to be gleaned from the fossils that will soon be reburied and probably permanently lost.

As a scientist working periodically on specimens from these localities, I may be in a position to put such an idea forward at some point in the future. Based on the restrictions associated with other state-run fossil parks, my guess is that "economic reasons" wouldn't fly but the scientific and educational value might be a point worth bringing up. 

[Mark Kmiecik]

2 minutes ago, jdp said:

As a scientist working periodically on specimens from these localities, I may be in a position to put such an idea forward at some point in the future. Based on the restrictions associated with other state-run fossil parks, my guess is that "economic reasons" wouldn't fly but the scientific and educational value might be a point worth bringing up. 

Economically the state would be using funds from a different part of the budget than the funds that have been in reserve for land reclamation to do half the job of reclamation, and save the remainder for areas in more dire need. It would be a win/win for the state and collectors both amateur and pro.

 

Your interest is appreciated and any persuasive power you lend to the effort would be deeply appreciated. This amateur thanks you.

[jdp]

1 hour ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

Economically the state would be using funds from a different part of the budget than the funds that have been in reserve for land reclamation to do half the job of reclamation, and save the remainder for areas in more dire need. It would be a win/win for the state and collectors both amateur and pro.

 

Your interest is appreciated and any persuasive power you lend to the effort would be deeply appreciated. This amateur thanks you.

I hear you about land reclamation costs, but in many cases there's going to be natural plant growth anyways, and coal mine runoff has its own environmental hazards, which do need to be taken into account as well. I think the bigger question is one of whether it makes sense to periodically clear overburden to allow collectors to pick up nodules, and if so, to figure out precisely how to make sure critical finds end up in the hands of research institutions. There are, for example, a lot of critically important and unique tetrapod fossils from various Mazon Creek localities that are circulating in private hands; the sort of project you're talking about would have to have some system to ensure that these sorts of fossils collected on these state lands were donated to a museum collection such as the State Museum in Springfield or the Field Museum up in Chicago. I don't like the idea of getting the research community to back a paleo park in the area only to have critically important fossils from this park turn up on online. That said, I am in favor of something where professionals and amateurs could work together to better characterize some of the rarer components of the fauna.

 

As there is probably about a century of Mazon Creek collection experience here, I would like to keep this discussion ongoing. I am not currently in a position where I can make this a major project, but I would be keen to continue discussing what you guys would want to see out of such a project because I think this could be beneficial to everyone involved. I know ESCONI used to have a critical role in professional collection of rare and ultra-rare Mazon Creek fossils, and I'd love to rebuild that sort of trust with your community.

[Mark Kmiecik]

13 minutes ago, jdp said:

I hear you about land reclamation costs, but in many cases there's going to be natural plant growth anyways, and coal mine runoff has its own environmental hazards, which do need to be taken into account as well. I think the bigger question is one of whether it makes sense to periodically clear overburden to allow collectors to pick up nodules, and if so, to figure out precisely how to make sure critical finds end up in the hands of research institutions. There are, for example, a lot of critically important and unique tetrapod fossils from various Mazon Creek localities that are circulating in private hands; the sort of project you're talking about would have to have some system to ensure that these sorts of fossils collected on these state lands were donated to a museum collection such as the State Museum in Springfield or the Field Museum up in Chicago. I don't like the idea of getting the research community to back a paleo park in the area only to have critically important fossils from this park turn up on online. That said, I am in favor of something where professionals and amateurs could work together to better characterize some of the rarer components of the fauna.

 

As there is probably about a century of Mazon Creek collection experience here, I would like to keep this discussion ongoing. I am not currently in a position where I can make this a major project, but I would be keen to continue discussing what you guys would want to see out of such a project because I think this could be beneficial to everyone involved. I know ESCONI used to have a critical role in professional collection of rare and ultra-rare Mazon Creek fossils, and I'd love to rebuild that sort of trust with your community.

ESCONI is still actively engaged in the collection and donation of Mazon Creek material to institutions that are suited to its scientific study, but I am unfortunately no longer a member. They are the ideal people to have this discussion with you. Perhaps @Nimravis can mediate in this endeavor. Let's see what he thinks. In the past at the Field Museum there was a close collaboration between amateur collectors and Gene Richardson, curator. Charles Shabica at North Eastern Illinois University headed "The Mazon Creek Project" which issued collecting permits for certain sites that were on utility companies' property and he also worked closely with amateurs in the identification and "donation" process. I've been out of the loop now for 11 years, so I don't know what is happening at this time, and that is why I think you may receive more relevant input from others who are still active with the club and/or collecting.

[Nimravis]

4 hours ago, jdp said:

I hear you about land reclamation costs, but in many cases there's going to be natural plant growth anyways, and coal mine runoff has its own environmental hazards, which do need to be taken into account as well. I think the bigger question is one of whether it makes sense to periodically clear overburden to allow collectors to pick up nodules, and if so, to figure out precisely how to make sure critical finds end up in the hands of research institutions. There are, for example, a lot of critically important and unique tetrapod fossils from various Mazon Creek localities that are circulating in private hands; the sort of project you're talking about would have to have some system to ensure that these sorts of fossils collected on these state lands were donated to a museum collection such as the State Museum in Springfield or the Field Museum up in Chicago. I don't like the idea of getting the research community to back a paleo park in the area only to have critically important fossils from this park turn up on online. That said, I am in favor of something where professionals and amateurs could work together to better characterize some of the rarer components of the fauna.

 

As there is probably about a century of Mazon Creek collection experience here, I would like to keep this discussion ongoing. I am not currently in a position where I can make this a major project, but I would be keen to continue discussing what you guys would want to see out of such a project because I think this could be beneficial to everyone involved. I know ESCONI used to have a critical role in professional collection of rare and ultra-rare Mazon Creek fossils, and I'd love to rebuild that sort of trust with your community.

@fiddleheadand @stats might be the people you would want to talk with.

[stats]

1 hour ago, Nimravis said:

@fiddleheadand @stats might be the people you would want to talk with.

Jack is very involved with the Field Museum collections.  He's coming out with a new plant book later this year.  ESCONI will be publishing it.  We hope to get it out by our 70th anniversary.

 

I am the ESCONI web admin and on the board of directors.  If you'd like to speak more, let me know.  We are always open to ideas.  We can set up a call.  Most of the board is away during the summer, but in the fall things will get going again.

 

Cheers,

Rich

[stats]

8 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

ESCONI is still actively engaged in the collection and donation of Mazon Creek material to institutions that are suited to its scientific study, but I am unfortunately no longer a member. They are the ideal people to have this discussion with you. Perhaps @Nimravis can mediate in this endeavor. Let's see what he thinks. In the past at the Field Museum there was a close collaboration between amateur collectors and Gene Richardson, curator. Charles Shabica at North Eastern Illinois University headed "The Mazon Creek Project" which issued collecting permits for certain sites that were on utility companies' property and he also worked closely with amateurs in the identification and "donation" process. I've been out of the loop now for 11 years, so I don't know what is happening at this time, and that is why I think you may receive more relevant input from others who are still active with the club and/or collecting.

I see you used to exhibit at the annual Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show.  Mark, come out sometime. We have some lively discussions.  Maybe we met in the past, as I have been a member since about 2004.  You can see the topics of the general and paleontology meetings on our website at www.esconi.org.

 

Cheers,

Rich

[jdp]

Tanks all for the information. Glad to hear that the rumors I've heard about bad blood between the Mazon Creek community and professional workers is either overstated or just simply incorrect. That's a massive relief.

 

As I said before, I'm not currently in a position to do a lot of advocacy but that may change sometime soon. In particular, what specific sorts of development would be necessary to reopen some of these areas? Is this something where simple changes in collecting access would be sufficient, or would this realistically require some degree of excavation? I'm aware that there are areas outside the reclamation areas where it is still quite easy to collect concretions (I've collected them myself from the creek shore and a few other sites in the area) although perhaps not at the scale they used to be available.

[digit]

There may be a simpler solution to the state (or county) spending lots of money plowing parts of the tipple piles in an attempt to keep it vegetation free and encourage erosion of buried concretions. You may or may not be aware that there was once a campground called Fossil Rock RV Resort & Campground where you could check in with the park manager on site and fill in a liability waver and pay a ridiculously inexpensive price of $5 per person to be allowed to drive to the back of the property (past the camping area) to the overgrown tipple piles out back. You were allowed to choose a spot and dig with tools (usually just a large shovel and/or hand shovel) and fill up to a 5-gallon bucket with concretions (though you never seemed to get that much in a day no matter how lucky you got). This campground is under new management and it is unclear when it will re-open or if fossil hunting on their property will ever be allowed again. It was incredible access while it lasted.

 

https://www.myfossilrock.com/

 

I was talking my wife about Mazonia-Braidwood when we recently made a trip up to the Chicago area. We managed to get out to surface hunt for some concretions while trying to dodge roaming hoards of ticks. While we did have reasonable success finding a few places in vertical relief where concretions had weathered out and were on the surface. This is a slow process and the areas I covered will be devoid of concretions (other than the ones I missed and I pretty much cleared out the small areas we hunted). I bemoaned the fact that it is so much effort these days to find concretions at the surface in M-B these days as the undergrowth does a good job of covering the surface in the summer. Most folks try to get out early in the fossil hunting season (starting March 1) when the vegetation is at its lowest after winter. Many don't even bother going in the summer (like we did) as the concretion to tick ratio is not at its best then. We had no choice as we were visiting in June but did well for ourselves considering the conditions.

 

At one point in time they tilled a small level section (maybe an acre) to try to make concretions available. This is too small an area and being horizontal few concretions weather out--and they are quickly gleaned by the first folks to hunt the area. I don't think I've seen evidence of that tilling having been done in years--not that it was much help anyway. Plowing larger sections of the tipple pile areas would likely be difficult, expensive and have limited results. You just can't turn back the clocks to the time when all of the tipple areas were new without any vegetation. It would be foolish to try to maintain any section in that sort of "pristine" state for long.

 

My thoughts (as I was driving home from M-B one day was that it would be sufficient to provide a decent parking area near a good tipple pile area--like to the east side of Monster Lake. There is walking trail access to the area but packing out a backpack of concretions or carrying a 5-gallon bucket for any distance is a literal pain. Closer parking would be essential. Other than that simply providing a specified (roped off or otherwise delineated) area where tools could be used to burrow down into the tipple piles in search for concretions would open up significantly more Pit 11 concretions to fossil hunters. Appropriate rules could be laid down to keep from extreme abuse of the area but simply opening up the area to tools and hunting below the surface would really be sufficient for increasing the number of concretions locked away in those tipple piles.

 

Florida fossil hunters are required to obtain a Florida Vertebrate Fossil Permit from the Florida Museum of Natural History (UF-Gainesville). It is a nominal fee ($5) and yearly reporting of what is being found where allows the museum to obtain data from non-professional fossil hunters to keep track of what is being found where. The museum reserves the right to claim any scientifically important find for their collection. Most non-professional fossil hunters simply donate rare finds if they are told they would be of interest to the museum. I've donated quite literally hundreds of specimens to the FLMNH collection. In fact, I'll be driving up to Gainesville today searching for a place to live and I'm bringing quite a number of fossils with me along with the donation forms. Over the last couple of decades of this program the museum has only had to force its "first dibs" ownership of important fossils to secure them just a handful of times.

 

I think requiring reporting of what is being found in a "fossil park" section of M-B and some means of requesting rare specimens that would further science could be built into a well designed plan. Of course, since these concretions would leave the site and would likely sit in buckets through many freeze/thaw cycles before they display any fossils within, it would not be possible to have the contents of the concretions checked upon leaving the site. This means enforcement of reporting of rare items would be strictly on the honor system--I see no other way. Sure, you may loose some interesting specimens when they are just to dear to the fossil hunter that they can't part with it but you'll also have access to more interesting finds from those who are happy working with scientists and would enjoy the pride of donating an important specimen that may lead to an important paper. You wouldn't get all the important concretions--human nature would prevent that. You would, however, open access to a locked-away treasure that we need no map to find--we know very well where the bounty is buried. Securing some of these now hidden concretions is surely better than letting them all remain trapped in their tipple graves. If someone was really motivated to advertise this new "fossil park" and keep track of the data, a website could be created with a means for folks to upload images of their concretion's contents for identification and a nice visual database of the types of concretions found in the "Mazonia-Braidwood Fossil Park" could be maintained. Social media has well trained folks to share images and the MyFossil website has already blazed the path for the type of website needed. It is possible that this existing website could be the platform used and a Mazonia-Braidwood section could be carved out within the MyFossil website to organize concretions found.

 

My two cents (adjusted for inflation). Hopefully, this may spur on some discussion on the creation of a Mazonia-Braidwood Fossil Park without the need for heavy equipment (after a small parking area would be added). It would be low maintenance as fossil hunters would be doing the excavations needed to expose new concretions. As long as this was limited to a section of the tipple pile area, there would be no need to be digging around in other parts of the Mazonia-Braidwood Southern Unit. There may be more work that would need to go into such a proposition but it surely is the path of least resistance to opening back up a small part of this important Lagerstätte to the public (and to science).

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[fiddlehead]

Andrew Hay and I arranged the present Mazonia-Braidwood fossil pass system with the Illinois State Museum. We knew at the time it was never going to work as far as getting any scientifically important specimens. It was only a way to get the IDNR to approve of anything being removed from a state park. Mazonia-Braidwood is the only Illinois state park where anything can be removed. You can not legally remove even a mushroom in the other parks. Presently, I do not know if anyone is even looking at the passes or any reports they might generate. No one has ever contacted me or The Field Museum because of something reported from a pass. A little history of large scale excavation at the park shows some of the problems. In the area called the tipple, from the hills to the road was disked up by a farmer/fossil collector.  It was done through the efforts of the former Mayor of Wilmington using political intrigue, and the willingness of a farmer to do it for free. It showed that discing did very little good. And it quickly grew over. The area known as ESCONI Hill, was plowed up by the state. But the area at that site was not very large, and from what I've seen it seems to have grow back faster and better than the unplowed areas. As far as scientifically important specimens getting to researchers, I don't think it has been much of a problem due to any pass system. The biggest problem is scientifically important specimens (SIS) are often not pretty and discarded. In nearly 20 years I don't recall ever not getting a SIS donated or purchased by me (at a discount) for The Field Museum collections once I had seen it. There are lots of things that makes a fossil a SIS but fortunately  beauty is seldom a factor. And though I would not mind it, I'm seldom shown anything pretty to be identified. Bottom line, from my point-of-view, the  Mazonia-Braidwood fossil pass system works i.e., the IDNR still lets people collect. But for this to continue working depends on collectors being treated honestly and with respect by professionals. What is important to me is that SIS are accessible for research and knowledge is shared. And hopefully people will have an area to be able to find plenty of pretty fossils in the future.

 

I hope this was helpful

Jack

[LabRatKing]

On 7/7/2019 at 8:14 PM, stats said:

Too many ticks in June.  I had 4 on me from a trip deep off the beaten tracks.  I think they all were Lone Star ticks. 

 

Saw baby deer in May.  We slowly backed away to keep from disturbing it.  Also, I've heard mother deer can get aggressive!

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

 

 

Thanks for this very informative post. One of these years, Mazon is on my vacation list. I used to hit a few spots in Pennsylvania for concretions, but they pale in comparison.

Sort of off topic, and a bit-odd sounding, but the secret to dealing with ticks is two pairs of extra large dollar store panty hose. I know. I know.Trust me, it works far better than bug spray. One pair is worn as intended under your clothing, the other you cut the feet off and the crotch out and wear as a shirt. Also works for leeches and jellyfish. I learned this during joint service training ops in Georgia from our instructors who were all SEALs and Rangers. I figure if they are manly enough to do it, so am I. Here in Nebraska, fossil season is also tick season, and Ill take feeling a bit silly over RMSF, Lyme, tularemia (rabbit fever) and the worst of all, alpha-gal allergy. (That last one make you allergic to meat!)

[Nimravis]

@fiddlehead Jack thanks for the input and I do remember the disking that took place and you are correct about it not doing much. I would love the State to dig up Tipple Hill and place the overburden right back, allowing things to be moved around and weather out, but I no that will never happen. Thanks again.