2024-09-28 - ESCONI Field Trip to Danville, IL for Carboniferous Fossils

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Fortunately, the threat of bad weather never materialized and we enjoyed a very nice day collecting fossils from a spoil pile just outside Danville, IL on September 28th, 2024.  This was our second trip to the spoil pile in 2024.  We've been visiting it twice a year since 2021.  By the shape of the hill, it's seen quite a bit of work since spring.  That exposed quite a few concretions.  Even though they are fairly ufgly, the concretions from this site can contain fossils.  There wasn't as much reddog shale available as previous trips, but what was exposed did produce some interesting fossils.

It was windy aand cooler than some of the previous trips, which made it more comfortable.  Here we are waiting to hit the pile.... Hello, Lil!

 

 

 

A view from the top.

 

 

 

Andrew Young fighting the wind at the top of the pile.

 

 

 

Some very nice fossils in the reddog shale.

 

 

 

 

This looks like a nice place to rest...

 

 

 

An interesting bivalve found by Katie Mitsui.

 

 

 

Jake, what a haul.  He found some very nice shapes!

 

 

 

 

And, the required end of day selfie.