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This is the second part of my post describing my recent fossil hunting trip with @Tales From the Shale in Utica, of which it was awesome!!! So after visiting the abandoned clay pit, we decided to go to another location in Utica one might not expect to be productive - the former peabody coal company Pit 15 (or at least its outskirts), located not to far away from Lake Shannon, Kankakee County, Illinois (I'm am not going to tell the specific route or address so the area doesn't end up being picked clean). We went there as I had heard a report that a while ago, someone found a sizable Cladodus (or cladodont labeled as Cladodus) tooth at Pit 15 itself. At the top of the outskirts of the Pit was truly Beautiful!!! I expected to find simply nodules in the area. What I found instead were a staggering amount of different rocks with a descent portion containing fossils, most of brachipods though. As the area was once a mine, I've somewhat come up with a theory as to why this is - when the mines were closed, the pit was filled not just with nodule containing rocks but by all the types of rocks available in the Utica area ranging from shale to clay to limestone, likely either Ordovician or Carboniferous in age. It's still a pretty productive site and I've recently analyzed many of the specimens with a microscope and dissecting scope and I hope to get some IDs from them! Here's a possible shark spine I found there!

I've been recently trying to find some good places to go fossil hunting in the Mazon Creek area and there is one area some say is good but I've never heard or or been to before. It's called the Essex Quadrangle or Essex Quad in Kankakee County Illinois. It's supposed to be extremely close to the old Peabody coal company pit 15 and have fossils from the Essex Biota dating to around the Pennsylvanian period. https://isgs.illinois.edu/maps-data-pub/quads/e/essex.shtml https://ilmineswiki.web.illinois.edu/index.php/0359 I'm wondering if anyone's heard of or been to the place before, what kind of fossils you can find there, and where is it?

There are 8 species of paleoniscoids currently described from the Mazon Creek Deposit. While all are relatively rare, the vast majority can be identified as Elonichthys peltigeras and Elonichthys hypsilepus. The other six species are known from very few examples (sometimes only one or two). Almost all Mazon Creek paleoniscoids are juveniles but there are a few larger examples. There are also some isolated body parts of larger individuals. The fact that most Mazon fish are juveniles and often poorly preserved can make identification difficult. To compound the problem there needs to be much more work done as some species may be synonymous with fossils from other areas. The specimen that I am highlighting is an extremely rare species named Elonichthys remotus. At the time it was described (1987) it was known from a single fossil (possibly 2). This is the only other example that I am aware of. It has a rather distinct body when compared to the other Mazon paleoniscoids. The dorsal fin sits far back on the body and begins behind the pelvic fin. The body is also more elongated then other described species. It was collected at Pit 15 which is located a little further South then Pit 11.