Crenulopteris acadica Tree Fern Fossil

 

Above is an image of a tree fern frond plant fossil called Crenulopteris acadica (Bell, 1962). This plant fossil dates to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Period between 354 and 290 million years ago. It was found Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA. Like most fossils found at this locality, it was inside a nodule. The layer to fossil was found is the Francis Creek Shale.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PP46053. They have quite an extensive collection of Mazon Creek fossils at the exhibit.

The Field Museum produced a visual PDF of some of the fossils found at Mazon Creek. It can be found at this link:

https://fieldguides.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/rapid-color-guides-pdfs/534_usa-age_fossils.pdf

Diplazites unita Fern Fossil

 

Above is an image of a tree fern frond plant fossil called Diplazites unita (Brongniart, 1822) Cleal, 2015. This plant fossil dates to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Period between 354 and 290 million years ago. It was found Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA. Like most fossils found at this locality, it was inside a nodule. The layer to fossil was found is the Francis Creek Shale.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PP1015. They have quite an extensive collection of Mazon Creek fossils at the exhibit.

The Field Museum produced a visual PDF of some of the fossils found at Mazon Creek. It can be found at this link:

https://fieldguides.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/rapid-color-guides-pdfs/534_usa-age_fossils.pdf

References:

Brongniart, A. (1822): Sur la classification et la distribution des végétaux fossiles  ‒ Mémoires du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, 8

Cleal, C. J. (2015): The generic taxonomy of Pennsylvanian age marattialean fern frond adpressions. ‒ Palaeontographica, Abteilung B, 292: 1–21. 

Mazon Creek Calamites Plant Fossil

 

Above is an image of a horsetail trunk plant fossil called Calamites sp. This plant fossil dates to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Period (354-290 mya). It was found Mazon Creek,  Illinois, USA. The layer fossils are found is in Francis Creek Shale.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is UP2561. They have quite an extensive collection of Mazon Creek fossils at the exhibit.

The Field Museum produced a visual PDF of some of the fossils found at Mazon Creek. It can be found at this link:

https://fieldguides.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/rapid-color-guides-pdfs/534_usa-age_fossils.pdf

Mazon Creek Collections Database at Illinois State Museum

http://www.museum.state.il.us/databases/geology/mazoncreek/graphical/index.php

Paraconularia Fossil From Indiana

 

This picture is of  what I think is a Paraconularia missouriensis? (Swallow, 1860) fossil. It existed in the Mississippian Period. The fossil was found in Carwood Formation of Washington County, Indiana USA. Thanks to Kenny for the picture. Conulariida are usually rare so I am not sure how common they are in this locality. Also it is a mystery as what exactly these extinct creatures looked like, are they a type of jellyfish?

UPDATE (2020-10-18): So I changed the name on this fossil, I think this is a Paraconularia missouriensis (Swallow, 1860) which is found in this Indiana county. The ridges are alternating when matching up at the midline thus a Paraconularia (Sinclair, 1940). I originally posted it as being Conularia (Miller, 1818). See this 2016 posting:

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2016/06/paraconularia-missouriensis-fossil.html

Learn more about this type of fossil at Dr. Mark Wilson's posting on the Wooster Geologist site:

https://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2017/04/14/wooster%e2%80%99s-fossil-of-the-week-a-conulariid-lower-carboniferous-of-indiana/

A note about Conularia, it was originally shown (see above) on plate XX figure 7 in The History of Rutherglen and East-Kilbride by David Ure (1749-1798), Glasgow:Printed by David Niven 1793. The specimen was not named but the author writes this on pages 330-331. "The clafs to which the curious foffil, fig. 7. pl. XX. originally beloned, is not fo far as I know, determined. The fpecimens are in cafts of iron-ftone, fometimes found incolfed in iron-ftone like a nucleus ; at other times found among till along with marin fhells, &c. Specimens are very rare." Note their typesetting back this strange to me. It looks like the the substitute lowercase f for lowercase s on some words. Find a scan of the book at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_Rutherglen_and_East_Kilbr/0jgtAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

References:

Miller, Hugh 1818. The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain by James Sowerby, Volume III, p. 108 

Sinclair, G.W. 1940. A discussion of the genus Metaconularia with descriptions of new species. Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 34:101-121

Sinclair, G. W. 1952. A classification of the Conulariida. Fieldiana Geology, 10:135–145. 

Swallow, G. C. 1860. Descriptions of new fossils from the Carboniferous and Devonian rocks of Missouri. Academy of Sciences of Saint Louis, Transactions, 1:635–660. 

Cypricardina scitula Pelecypod Fossil

 

These are pictures of a clam fossil called Cypricardina scitula (Herrick). It existed in the Mississippian Period. The fossil was found in Carwood Formation of Washington County, Indiana USA. Thanks to Kenny for the pictures and nice find!

Odontopteris aequalis Mazon Creek Fern Fossil

 

Above is an image of a seed fern plant fossil called Odontopteris aequalis. This plant fossil dates to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Period. It was found Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA. Like most fossils found at this locality, it was inside a nodule.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PP31097. They have quite an extensive collection of Mazon Creek fossils at the exhibit.

The Field Museum produced a visual PDF of some of the fossils found at Mazon Creek. It can be found at this link:

https://fieldguides.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/rapid-color-guides-pdfs/534_usa-age_fossils.pdf

Mariopteris nervosa Fern Fossil From Mazon Creek

 

Above is an image of a seed fern plant fossil called Mariopteris nervosa (Brongniart) Zeiller. This plant fossil dates to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Period. It was found Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA and appears to be made of chocolate (only kidding). 

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PP46034. They have quite an extensive collection of Mazon Creek fossils at the exhibit.

Reference:

https://www.academia.edu/5989500/Mariopteris_Dicksonites_and_Fortopteris_from_the_Dobrudzha_Coalfield_Bulgaria

Early Paleontology & The Crystal Park

 

YouTube is a great place to learn new things and one channel I look for videos to inform me is call The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered. They published a video on October 9, 2020 called The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs and Early Paleontology.

The video covers the origins of paleontology in Europe. He then covers dinosaur (and other ancient creatures) exhibits at The Crystal Park (moved from the 1851 The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations) at Bromley, London, England in 1854.The park still exists today though parts are in disrepair. A group called the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs exists to help protect and restore this piece of history.

University College London produces a series called Lunch Hour Lectures. They hosted Professor Joe Cain in June 2013 discussing the park and it's dinosaurs models. Video link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPhm4Lw538U&feature=emb_logo

Image at beginning of post taken from Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park by Samuel Phillips (1814-1854) 4th Ed. Illustrated by Philip Henry Delamotte(1821-1889), published by Bradbury and Evans, London 1855. The sculptures on the island were created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807-1894).

Louisville Waterway Protection Tunnel Borer Journey Completed

 

Back on September 9, 2019 I wrote about Louisville Metro Sewer District (MSD) Waterway Protection Tunnel project and its exhibit that I helped contribute to at the Kentucky Science Center. Well, the boring machine (aka Bumblebee) has completed it journey of about 4 miles under the city. It breached the wall of its extraction hole on September 30, 2020 near Lexington Road and Grinstead Drive. The journey took about 20 months and removed more than 625,000 tons of material. 

Congratulations to MSD, Black & Veatch Construction, and J.F. Shea Contruction, Inc. for getting to this important milestone in the tunnel project. The full project should be completed sometime in 2021.

See the WHAS 11 news story at this YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBXMc257UlQ or see it on the viewer window below.

MSD released a video of the event on YouTube as well at this page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvgHSKm4rUA&feature=emb_logo or look at viewer below.