Sometimes You Have To Whack It !!

[Mark Kmiecik]

2 hours ago, Nimravis said:

Lepidostrobophyllum triangulare -- one of the best specimens I've ever seen.

 

I also remember the days, some 25+ years ago when I could walk 100 feet on some of my sites on private property that I had received permission to hunt and fill up two five-gallon buckets and have to haul them back to the car, get another two buckets and repeat a couple more times. Sometimes the rear tires would rub against the wheel wells when going over bumps on pavement. Nine buckets maxes out a Chevy Cavalier.

 

Ready for more anytime you are. You waited for the hottest days for the cardio boost, right?

[Phevo]

I never tire of your nodule openings 

 

Thanks for sharing

[Tidgy's Dad]

1 hour ago, Nimravis said:

 

Lepidostrobophyllum bract-

I found a lot of Myalinella meeki, some are really nice.

A nice Pecten, I am thinking Dunbarella striata.

 

Love the bract the most. (rather than brach, for a change) .

And the Dunbarella is really nice. 

And you're right about some of those Myalinella being good ones. 

Lungfish scales are always cool to see. 

Nice splits, Ralph. 

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

also remember the days, some 25+ years ago when I could walk 100 feet on some of my sites on private property that I had received permission to hunt and fill up two five-gallon buckets

Those were the days Mark. Though I keep hoping for a new construction site to open and yield more. The problem with this is, I never go there looking.

 

1 hour ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

Ready for more anytime you are. You waited for the hottest days for the cardio boost, right?

I am going to see about opening more tomorrow- I still have a number of buckets to go.

 

47 minutes ago, Phevo said:

I never tire of your nodule openings

Thanks I appreciate that, it also makes my wife happy to get rid of them- lol.

 

32 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Nice splits, Ralph

Thanks Adam.

[ynot]

Looks like You are still finding some nice things in them buckets.

[Nimravis]

25 minutes ago, ynot said:

Looks like You are still finding some nice things in them buckets.

Yes Tony- everyone is a surprise.

[bigred97]

Wow, the good ol' days, indeed. It pains me that I have been old enough to drive since the mid 80's but only found out about Mazon Creek in late 2017. But I still really like reading the stories and seeing the pictures from those days.

I love the diversity from your last whacking session - wonderful pieces!

Chris

[Nimravis]

@bigred97 Chris thanks for the comments and I blame the lack of knowledge on the site on the State of Illinois, they have done a lousy job of promoting it. I found the area by an accidental call to a library.

[deutscheben]

13 hours ago, Nimravis said:

@bigred97 Chris thanks for the comments and I blame the lack of knowledge on the site on the State of Illinois, they have done a lousy job of promoting it. I found the area by an accidental call to a library.

I'd love to hear more about how you first discovered the area!

[Nimravis]

4 hours ago, deutscheben said:

I'd love to hear more about how you first discovered the area!

I always liked rocks and fossils but did not know where to collect them. I lived about 7 blocks from North Eastern University, which is where the Mazon Creek Project was and I never knew it until I was going there later on. I also stopped at Dave’s Rock Shop in Evanston about 30 years ago and asked if there was anywhere to collect fossils in Illinois and I was told about Braidwood, but they also advised me that it was closed to collecting- which was not true.

 

Finally years later, I asked people at work if they knew anything place to collect fossils and I mentioned the Braidwood area. I got a call from a co-worker who told me about Fossil Rock Campground, but did not know anything else about it. So one Saturday I called 411 - (pre-internet days) and I asked for their number. I then called the number that I was given and it turned out to be the Fossil Ridge Library in Braidwood. Now under normal circumstances I would have apologized and hung up, but for some reason I did not. I told the woman my predicament with fossils and she gave me the phone number to a person she referred to as their “ Resident Expert”- Walter Lietz. I called this older gentleman and he invited me and my family to his house in Wilmington. We were surprised because we are from Chicago and that was something that you did not do. We went down and thus started my love of Mazon Creek fossils. Walter was about 40-50 years older than me and had a vast collection of Mazon Creek fossils. His spider is on the cover of Richardson’s Guide to Mazon Creek Fauna. He donated it to the Mazon Creek Project along with hundreds of other fantastic fossils. Walter use to collect with Francis Tully and they would go to the Field Museum on the weekends and bring unknown fossils to Dr. Eugene Richardson so he could ID them. He was such a great guy to me and my son and we remained friends until his death. I use to go and keep an eye on him when his wife went out shopping, he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and I would play videos of trips that he and I did for the Braidwood Library (Pit 11) or Shadow Lakes residents  (Pit 4). He also had binders of correspondence from professors from all over the world regarding Mazon Creek fossils. A favorite of his was Jarmilla Peck from Carleton University -Ottawa (Paleoentomologist). She would come to his house and look at insects that he had. She was a very nice woman and would send him drawings of some of his fossils. These binders of Walter’s were a great wealth of information and one day I called his wife after he had passed to see how she was doing, I would still visit her after his death, and she told me that she had a great big bonfire going. I asked her what she was doing and she stated that she was burning the stuff in the binders because she was going to give the binders to the church and asked if I needed an empty binder. I told her that I would have taken all of that stuff to save and she stated that she did not think I wanted it, I should have talked up earlier. I credit Walter and his wife Rita for my love of fossils, if I had been given the wrong number those many years ago I doubt that I would have ever discovered my true love of fossils.

 

[RCFossils]

1 hour ago, Nimravis said:

I always liked rocks and fossils but did not know where to collect them. I lived about 7 blocks from North Eastern University, which is where the Mazon Creek Project was and I never knew it until I was going there later on. I also stopped at Dave’s Rock Shop in Evanston about 30 years ago and asked if there was anywhere to collect fossils in Illinois and I was told about Braidwood, but they also advised me that it was closed to collecting- which was not true.

 

Finally years later, I asked people at work if they knew anything place to collect fossils and I mentioned the Braidwood area. I got a call from a co-worker who told me about Fossil Rock Campground, but did not know anything else about it. So one Saturday I called 411 - (pre-internet days) and I asked for their number. I then called the number that I was given and it turned out to be the Fossil Ridge Library in Braidwood. Now under normal circumstances I would have apologized and hung up, but for some reason I did not. I told the woman my predicament with fossils and she gave me the phone number to a person she referred to as their “ Resident Expert”- Walter Lietz. I called this older gentleman and he invited me and my family to his house in Wilmington. We were surprised because we are from Chicago and that was something that you did not do. We went down and thus started my love of Mazon Creek fossils. Walter was about 40-50 years older than me and had a vast collection of Mazon Creek fossils. His spider is on the cover of Richardson’s Guide to Mazon Creek Fauna. He donated it to the Mazon Creek Project along with hundreds of other fantastic fossils. Walter use to collect with Francis Tully and they would go to the Field Museum on the weekends and bring unknown fossils to Dr. Eugene Richardson so he could ID them. He was such a great guy to me and my son and we remained friends until his death. I use to go and keep an eye on him when his wife went out shopping, he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and I would play videos of trips that he and I did for the Braidwood Library (Pit 11) or Shadow Lakes residents  (Pit 4). He also had binders of correspondence from professors from all over the world regarding Mazon Creek fossils. A favorite of his was Jarmilla Peck from Carleton University -Ottawa (Paleoentomologist). She would come to his house and look at insects that he had. She was a very nice woman and would send him drawings of some of his fossils. These binders of Walter’s were a great wealth of information and one day I called his wife after he had passed to see how she was doing, I would still visit her after his death, and she told me that she had a great big bonfire going. I asked her what she was doing and she stated that she was burning the stuff in the binders because she was going to give the binders to the church and asked if I needed an empty binder. I told her that I would have taken all of that stuff to save and she stated that she did not think I wanted it, I should have talked up earlier. I credit Walter and his wife Rita for my love of fossils, if I had been given the wrong number those many years ago I doubt that I would have ever discovered my true love of fossils.

 

That's a great story. I never had a chance to meet Walter but have heard similar stories with how eager he was to share his collection with others.

What a shame to hear that all of his correspondence with researchers is lost.

I have purchased a few collections from some of the old timers and have many letters and drawings from Jarmila and others researchers thanking the collectors for sharing/donating important specimens.

[Nimravis]

39 minutes ago, RCFossils said:

That's a great story. I never had a chance to meet Walter but have heard similar stories with how eager he was to share his collection with others.

Yes he was. Myself and others would give him our “cast offs” and he would use them for the grab bags that we gave to all participants that were on the Braidwood Library trip or the ones he and I would do inside Shadow Lakes. He would also take other grab bags and bigger specimens that he mounted on cardboard down to the Wilmington Historical Society and he would give them the proceeds as a donation and would always list the names of the collectors who contributed fossils. They went through a lot of fossils at the Historical Society since they were priced for next to nothing.

 

 

[Nimravis]

45 minutes ago, RCFossils said:

What a shame to hear that all of his correspondence with researchers is lost.

Yes it is. When I would stop by to keep an eye on him, besides showing him videos, I would also read him some of the correspondence that he had received, he was always proud of the many contributions he made to different Universities.

[Mark Kmiecik]

On 6/29/2019 at 5:37 PM, Nimravis said:

Those were the days Mark. Though I keep hoping for a new construction site to open and yield more. The problem with this is, I never go there looking.

I wonder if there's a list of proposed reclamation sites and a schedule available from the state? Checking for construction permits in the four county area could be a useful tool as well.

[Mark Kmiecik]

3 hours ago, Nimravis said:

I told the woman my predicament with fossils and she gave me the phone number to a person she referred to as their “ Resident Expert”- Walter Lietz. I called this older gentleman and he invited me and my family to his house in Wilmington.

I met Walter once at his house. He showed me around the garage. I still remember the Annularia Stellata about 3/4 of the way in on the west wall and the pyrite stars near the entry door. That Annularia was about 15" long, 3.5" wide and I don't remember if it was 9 or 11 whorls, but the preservation was the absolute best. It was equal to if not better than any museum specimen I've ever seen. After guiding me through the collection we went outside to the "stump" where he cracked open a few that were ready, including a Pit 4 Mariopteris about 2.5" in diameter that was the best preserved and highest relief MC specimen I have ever seen. Except for the color it looked as if it were still alive. I think he wanted to give it to me, but I just couldn't accept so fine a specimen. After that we went into the house for a bit where I met his wife, Rita. I thanked them for their hospitality and left, figuring the hour of their time I wasted was enough for now. Turns out it was closer to 3 hours when I looked at my watch. He was not a young man and I felt bad about taking up so much of his time. That was the only time I visited. Big mistake on my part. A few years later he died.

[Nimravis]

@Mark Kmiecik Mark he for sure would have given you those fossils that he cracked open, that was Walter. That tree stump was great and he would put that little anvil thing on top of it to crack them open. He gave away his garage collection I believe 3 times over the years, he kept replenishing it with better pieces and then would give them to the Mazon Creek Project. I remember he also gave them a beautiful P. Mazonensis (Legless amphibian) which I believe was later donated to the Burpee Museum in Rockford after the Mazon Creek Project left Northeastern. You would have loved hanging out with him and listening to his stories.

[Nimravis]

@Mark Kmiecik since we were talking about Walter and Rita I figured I would post a couple pictures of them that I took. Here are a couple when we were out collecting in the field-

 

 

Here is a picture from a Mazon Creek Open House, I have a date on the back of 8-15-1997. It was the year that Richardson's Guide to The Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek came out, and it was a very happy day for him. A lot of the authors for the different chapters were present, signing copies of the book, and Walter was right up there with them signing the book because his spider that he donated to the Mazon Creek Project was on the cover.

 

 

[Mark Kmiecik]

If you collected with Walter it is now much easier for me to understand why you just want to smack it with a hammer.  A lot of the "old-timers" would actually crack them out in the field because they didn't want to carry that much rock home unless it was worth taking, and there was so much material easily available that it didn't matter if you messed up a few, and most of them got to be so good with a hammer that they got it right without messing up the specimen. Those pictures of Pit 4? He did a LOT of collecting from Pit 4, probably because it was so close to home.

[Nimravis]

34 minutes ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

If you collected with Walter it is now much easier for me to understand why you just want to smack it with a hammer.  A lot of the "old-timers" would actually crack them out in the field because they didn't want to carry that much rock home unless it was worth taking, and there was so much material easily available that it didn't matter if you messed up a few, and most of them got to be so good with a hammer that they got it right without messing up the specimen. Those pictures of Pit 4? He did a LOT of collecting from Pit 4, probably because it was so close to home.

You are correct about the hammer, he never froze anything. Yes that is at Pit 4, he had a pass and depending on the weather we would decide where to collect, Pit 4 or Pit 11, we also had other places that we would go. My son and I would collect with Walter and many times Rita every Saturday and Sunday for years. He would leave in the fall for New Mexico and Texas and return in the Spring in time for the MAPS Show.

[stats]

9 hours ago, Nimravis said:

I always liked rocks and fossils but did not know where to collect them. I lived about 7 blocks from North Eastern University, which is where the Mazon Creek Project was and I never knew it until I was going there later on. I also stopped at Dave’s Rock Shop in Evanston about 30 years ago and asked if there was anywhere to collect fossils in Illinois and I was told about Braidwood, but they also advised me that it was closed to collecting- which was not true.

 

Finally years later, I asked people at work if they knew anything place to collect fossils and I mentioned the Braidwood area. I got a call from a co-worker who told me about Fossil Rock Campground, but did not know anything else about it. So one Saturday I called 411 - (pre-internet days) and I asked for their number. I then called the number that I was given and it turned out to be the Fossil Ridge Library in Braidwood. Now under normal circumstances I would have apologized and hung up, but for some reason I did not. I told the woman my predicament with fossils and she gave me the phone number to a person she referred to as their “ Resident Expert”- Walter Lietz. I called this older gentleman and he invited me and my family to his house in Wilmington. We were surprised because we are from Chicago and that was something that you did not do. We went down and thus started my love of Mazon Creek fossils. Walter was about 40-50 years older than me and had a vast collection of Mazon Creek fossils. His spider is on the cover of Richardson’s Guide to Mazon Creek Fauna. He donated it to the Mazon Creek Project along with hundreds of other fantastic fossils. Walter use to collect with Francis Tully and they would go to the Field Museum on the weekends and bring unknown fossils to Dr. Eugene Richardson so he could ID them. He was such a great guy to me and my son and we remained friends until his death. I use to go and keep an eye on him when his wife went out shopping, he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and I would play videos of trips that he and I did for the Braidwood Library (Pit 11) or Shadow Lakes residents  (Pit 4). He also had binders of correspondence from professors from all over the world regarding Mazon Creek fossils. A favorite of his was Jarmilla Peck from Carleton University -Ottawa (Paleoentomologist). She would come to his house and look at insects that he had. She was a very nice woman and would send him drawings of some of his fossils. These binders of Walter’s were a great wealth of information and one day I called his wife after he had passed to see how she was doing, I would still visit her after his death, and she told me that she had a great big bonfire going. I asked her what she was doing and she stated that she was burning the stuff in the binders because she was going to give the binders to the church and asked if I needed an empty binder. I told her that I would have taken all of that stuff to save and she stated that she did not think I wanted it, I should have talked up earlier. I credit Walter and his wife Rita for my love of fossils, if I had been given the wrong number those many years ago I doubt that I would have ever discovered my true love of fossils.

 

Excellent story Ralph!  I love the history and wish there was more on the people that made huge contributions over the years.  The books to identify specimens are great, but there really needs to be more on the people.

 

Cheers,

Rich

[deutscheben]

@Nimravis, @RCFossils, @Mark Kmiecik thank you so much for sharing your wonderful stories of Walter and the  Mazon Creek collecting community. I agree with Rich @stats- It is always a delight to read about the people and history of the site- so many real characters, and also so many great amateur contributions to science. 

[jdp]

Wow, this is an absolute goldmine. It's really nice to hear the backstories here. I've seen a lot of the specimens and heard a few of the stories, but this is a rich history that I just never knew. Sometime, I think I'd like to pick some of your brains for details because these stories ought to be recorded for posterity.

[Nimravis]

On 7/1/2019 at 6:09 PM, Mark Kmiecik said:

A lot of the "old-timers" would actually crack them out in the field

Mark I wanted to add this little bit of information. In my papers on Mazon Creek I came across a "typed' copy of George Langfords diary that he kept as he collected fossils. For those who do not know who he is, he was the Curator of Fossil Plants at the Chicago Natural History Museum, now known as the Field Museum. Langford retired from that position in January of 1962. His first trip to the Strip Mines was in October of 1937 and after that first visit, he would regularly collect with his son. Langford did collect at the actual Mazon Creek years before his visit to the strip mines. 

 

Now onto cracking concretions. From what I understand, Langford had lost one of his arms sometime before collecting concretions. According to Eugene Richardson, Former Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology (Field Museum), who would collect with the Langfords, said that in order for Langford to crack open concretions, he would hold them with his feet and whack them. Richardson said that Langford would jokingly remark- "Occasionally the collector misses his aim and hits his thumb, a painful injury results. When I miss my aim, my shoes protect my feet. I have split many thousands of nodules and have never hit my thumb."

 

It must have been a great time to collect, here is a list of fossils that he opened after one day of collecting on September 1, 1948.

 

Flora

Large 1st Grade (86)    I believe 1st Grade might be Excellent and 2nd Grade might be Very Good

Small 1st Grade (45)

Large 2nd Grade (157)

Small 2nd (grade) 162

TOTALS- 450

 

Fauna

 

Euproops Horseshoe Crab (4)

Acanthotelson Shrimp (9)

Fish (1)

Spiders (2)

Fish Scale (1)

Gyromices (Microconchids) (2)

Bivalves (5)

TOTAL- 24

[bigred97]

TWO spiders in one day. Oh my goodness.

[stats]

59 minutes ago, bigred97 said:

TWO spiders in one day. Oh my goodness.

Wow!   What a day that would be!

 

Cheers,

Rich