Fossil Collecting Mazon Creek Pit 11: The Field Guide

Description

I created this book to document and share one of my favorite Illinois outdoor adventures, fossil collecting the famous Mazon Creek fossil bed. This is the best modern-day field guide on the area. It shows you how to find and collect Mazon Creek fossils in the Mazonia Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife area in Braceville, Illinois.

About an hours’ drive from Chicago, the area is a former coal strip mine known as Pit 11 and contains rare, 300-million-year-old fossils that are still found today.

Up until the late 70s, this was an active mine that dug up hundreds of tons of raw coal, and the fossils that lied right above, by the truckload. Researchers and amateur paleontologists combed the hills and spoil piles for fossiliferous concretions. In these fossils, they found one of the most complete and diverse plant and animal fossil records from this period, making it one of the most important fossil beds in the world. Many of these finds still reside in the Field Museum of Natural History’s collection, as well as museum and private collections around he world.

It is very difficult to find fossils here today, hence the need for this guide. The State Park is no longer a vast and open coal mine. It is overgrown with decades of both native and invasive plant species that hide these rare concretions. Despite the challenge, the area remains open for fossil collecting from March 1-September 30.

To find a decent amount, you need to know exactly where to look and what to look for. A first timer to the area will likely not be able to find any fossils. Collecting with someone familiar with the area, or using this guide, will help tremendously.

 

What you get in Fossil Collecting Mazon Creek Pit 11: The Field Guide

• A brief history on Mazon Creek concretions and the strip coal mines
• 8+ maps of secluded Mazon Creek Pit 11 collecting sites
• Tips on searching Pit 11, what to look for and where to look
• A map to the site where I found my Tully Monster Fossil
• Photos that exemplify finds from this fossil deposit
• How to open, and properly clean, prepare, and display Mazon Creek fossils.

I have spent the past 5 years hiking and combing through these hills in search of fossils in this State Park. This guide contains maps to some of the last collectable areas of Pit 11, and makes the difference between you carrying out a few concretions vs lugging home a 40lb bucket of hundreds.

The book contains 100+ present day photos of the landscape and dozens of photos of fossils and concretions from the area, and is a great addition to your book collection.

A Look Inside

You can read about my adventures to Pit 11 in recent years at the following Blog posts.

Mazon Creek Pit 11 Collecting Report- Islands and Braceville Hill 2017
Mazon Creek Collecting Report Torino Hill
Mazon Creek Collecting Report 2017
Mazon Creek opener March 2017
Mazon Creek Fossil Hunting in Braidwood, IL
Fishing the Mazon River in Morris, IL

The Fossils

300 million years ago, Illinois was near the center of a large Carboniferous forest that stood at the edge of a large inland sea. The famous Mazon Creek concretions formed when layers of sediment rapidly trapped small fish, insects, ferns, and sea life. You can read more about the paleobiology and creation of these fossils from The Smithsonian and Wikipedia. The end result of this prehistoric phenomenon is that small organisms became encased and preserved in nodules or concretions that can now be collected from Pit 11. Below is an image of my unopened finds that you would look for in this State Park. The book contains many more photos and resources I am sure you will enjoy.

Also do not forget to print the Mazon Creek Fossil Collecting Permit to carry with you:

I am not a scholar on these fossils or a historian of the area, just a passionate collector. For much more information on the area, I recommend the 3 best Mazon Creek books:

• Richardson’s Guide to the Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek by Charles W. Shabica and Andrew A. Hay
• The Mazon Creek Fossil Fauna by Jack Wittry
• The Mazon Creek Fossil Flora by Jack Wittry

Thank you to everyone for visiting my page and your interest in the book. Hope to see you all in Pit 11 soon. You can see more samples and read more about the book here: Inside the Mazon Creek Field Guide