2023-09-16/17 ESCONI Braceville Shaft Mine Trip

[stats]

This is the Mazon Monday post from the ESCONI website this morning.

 

There were numerous Fossil Forum users.... @bigred97 @flipper559 @RMAA.  I know there were others there.  Please add yourselves.

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The Fall 2023 Braceville Field Trip is in the books... is is that on the web?   It was a enjoyable, but somewhat wet, weekend.  We had rain at the very end of the day on Saturday and most of Sunday.  The mud was not too bad.  The dry conditions this late summer probably left the shale in a state where it could soak up a good bit of the water.

 

We had visitors from out of state both days.  Alan Keith was very generous and passed out fossils from Texas and Oklahoma.  The fossil dump was as good as ever.  We had quite a few buckets on both days.  Unfortunately, not as many people stuck around until 11:30 on Sunday, as we had a steady rain for most of the morning.   Material was supplied by Ralph Jewell, @Nimravis Andrew Young, Rich Holm, Alan Keith, and others.  Thank you for your contributions!

 

Good morning!

 

Here is a little introductory video on the walk in on Sunday morning.  It rained quite a bit Saturday night, so the shale was sticky in places.  Here is a Mazon Monday post about the history of the Braceville spoil pile.  It was called worm hill by the old timers.

 

Fossil Dump on Saturday

 

Good luck horseshoe found by Chris Berg @bigred97.

 

Huntin' for fossils!

 

Smiles from the pile!

 

Mud!

 

Poison ivy!

 

Steam from the hill when the sun came out on Sunday afternoon

 

Open fossils found!

 

Say goodbye to another successful field trip!

Edited September 19, 2023 by stats

[Nimravis]

Rich- great report and pics/videos, wish I could have gone.

[ClearLake]

Thanks @stats, it was nice to meet you even though we did not get to talk too long.  My wife and I had a great time there on Sunday, even with the intermittent rain.  We totally missed the fossil dump as we were trying to maximize our time on the hill before the stronger rain showed up.  Plus, we wanted to get on the road as we were headed back to Texas.  But we came away with a bunch of concretions and I look forward to working them through the freeze/thaw process to see if we found anything interesting.

[Fossildude19]

Great report!

I enjoy seeing these types of meet ups, posted on the Forum.  Thanks.
Looks like a good time.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Thanks for sharing this. 

[stats]

15 hours ago, Nimravis said:

Rich- great report and pics/videos, wish I could have gone.

We missed you.  Thanks for providing material for the dump.

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

[Nimravis]

4 hours ago, stats said:

We missed you.  Thanks for providing material for the dump.

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

No problem- I enjoy doing it.

[Anomotodon]

I was also there on Saturday! (with a group of other Wisconsin grad students) I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here is a nice Essexella concretion in situ and opened.