Mazon Creek Fossil Collecting March 1, 2020

A few weeks ago, in simpler times, I partook in my annual fossil collecting trip to the famous site of Mazon Creek’s Pit 11. I was joined by a couple old collecting friends and a few new ones as well. I also saw and met many people on the trails and in the parking lot as, even though the lakes were still frozen, it was a warm beautiful day to enjoy the outdoors, take a hike, and try our luck in finding some of Illinois’ most famous fossils.

It was about 2-3 hours of collecting, a bit of a shorter day.

Here is the trail to the spot we chose today. At parts, it gets more impassible each year.

Of course, fossilized Jellyfish were plentiful in the area, and I kept a few of the nicer ones.

Another one I had cleaned up.

Here was nearly the full haul of closed concretions which I’ll be able to work on over the next few weeks. I was rather selective in the shapes and sizes I took home this time around.

The ideal way to open these is to soak them in water for a couple days, then put them in the freezer for a couple days, then let them thaw. And repeat until they crack in half. Ideally, the water soaks into the more fragile plane where the fossil lies, and opens the concretion more perfectly than a hammer would.

I’ll be skipping the common freeze/thaw method, because my freezer is currently filled with a modest, but slightly above normal amount of frozen fruits and vegetables. Plus these were all found on or near the surface, and have had a few cycles added to them in the winter.

Since I will be home for the next few weeks, I’ll use this blog to document some of the openings as I go through them. I’ll be pacing myself since it seems that we will all be having some time on our hands.

Unfortunately, it appears the Mazonia State Fish and Wildlife is closed until further notice, and this was the one and only collecting trip for now.

Concretion 1

This one looked most promising, it was symmetrical and had some depth to it, so I was excited to open it.

It came cleanly open, but only revealed a ‘blob’ or organic material that did not fossilize in a way to be identifiable.

Concretions 2, 3, and 4

Day 1

After Illinois’ announced its “stay at home” order which starts today, I’ll be posting here more often as I go through some of my collection. I’ll also start other projects to keep me healthy, sane, and one eye off the news, during the quarantine.

One of my Day 1 Projects was starting a new garden. Which is really just an undersized pot with some radish seeds which supposedly will be ready in 3 weeks. I’ll probably have improvise a container to re-pot it soon, but its a start.

For now, please, everyone stay home as often as you can, get groceries sand supplies delivered, and wash your hands as often as possible so we don’t end up like Italy and can be done with all this ASAP