By Mary Fairchild In all North America, the Mazon Creek flora has the largest number of species and greatest taxonomic diversity of any Moscovian Pennsylvanian period assemblage. More than 200 species have been documented, of which the majority are fern and seed fern foliage. Jack Wittry Jack Wittry has written six scientific articles and has published two…
Tag: Mazon Creek Fossils
Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art: Chinese Jade Carvings, Fossils, and Minerals
By Mary Fairchild The Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art displays a large selection of Chinese jade and hard stone carvings from around the world as well as lapidary materials, fossils, meteorites, and minerals. My husband and I stopped in and chatted with Dorothy Ascher who is the granddaughter the museum’s founder, Joseph Lizzadro. Flickr Pictures…
Mid-America Paleontology Society Annual Fossil Show Moves to Iowa
By Mary Fairchild Is it dinosaur? This fossil was found in gravel in northwest Iowa. Flickr Picture Set The huge continental glaciers that advanced and retreated across Iowa during the Ice Age picked up large volumes of rock and other sediments as they moved across the continent. Today, reworked and transported Cretaceous fossils, which underlie large areas of the…
Door County: Sea Change and Sea Kayaking
By Mary Fairchild Glacial polished dolostone on Schoolhouse Beach, Washington Island, WI. At one time the whole middle of the North American Continent sank from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. One of the most deeply sunken areas centered in the present middle of Lower Michigan. Gradually this low spot was filled in with about…
Dinner With Frederick Schram
By Mary FairchildRob Sula, Dr. Frederick R. Schram, Jack Wittry, Jim Fairchild.–August, 2011. The Mazon Creek site is very significant because of the diversity of life compared to other Lagerstatten. Frederick R. Schram (2) In August, ESCONI members Rob and Sondra Sula, Jack and Charlene Wittry, and Jim and I met with Dr. Frederick Schram at…
If I Could Turn Back Time: ESCONI Rock Club
By Mary Fairchild “The Mazon Creek flora is renowned for being almost completely collected by amateurs. Since 1858, in an area covering approximately 100 square miles, untold numbers of collectors have gathered fossils in quantities unprecedented in North America.” Jack Wittry In the mid-1990s when our family first became interested in collecting fossils our electric bill…