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Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
The Ferris wheel axle from Chicago's 1893 World's Fair found in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri, buried after their 1904 World's Fair was over.
Touted as the Eighth Wonder of the World, George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. (1859-1896) invented the Observation wheel for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago.
After the World's Columbian Exposition, the Ferris wheel was moved into the middle of Chicago's northside in 1895, where George Ferris opened "Ferris Wheel Park."
The Ferris wheel would delight fairgoers once more at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904, the largest World Fair ever held in the country up to 1904, from St. Louis (founded in 1764). Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis & Clark to explore the new Louisiana Territory in May 1804. Two years later, when the explorers returned in September 1806, the city became known as the "Gateway to the West" for the many mountain men, adventurers, and setters who followed the path of Lewis and Clark into the new frontier. The 1904 World's Fair was the centennial celebration of that original historical event that established St. Louis as the de facto "Gateway to the West." The "Gateway Arch," the famous 630-foot Arch on the banks of the Mississippi River, was completed in 1966 to commemorate the city's "Gateway to the West" moniker.
The Ferris wheel (264 feet high) came to a most ignominious end when it succumbed to a wrecking dynamite charge on May 11, 1906. Contrary to the demolition engineers' hopes that it would fall over on its side, it simply crumbled in place.
The scrap handlers used torches to dismember and reduce all the component parts except the axle to a small, manageable size. At the time of its manufacture by Bethlehem Steel Company, the axle (axle 45½ feet in length and weighed in at 89,320 pounds) was the largest single piece of forged steel ever made in America. It was so massive with such a large thermal mass that torches were useless in cutting it down in size.
What happened next, no one knows. Typically, no one would care what happened to a then piece of scrap steel that, having performed its function, was condemned to the scrap heap. Nostalgia and a keen sense of history had taken root in St. Louis over the past several decades, at least as far as St. Louis 1904 World's Fair is concerned. The centennial of 1904 was celebrated in 2004. Historians and the public formed "The Worlds Fair Society in 1986."
Imagine an imagined scenario in 1906 when a city official charged with cleaning up the area and returning to the city's business ordered his crew boss, "Get rid of that hunk of metal. Hide, bury, or do whatever, but I don't want to see it anymore."
Stories abound about how it was melted down or taken away for its scrap value. Others have said it was probably pulled by a team of mules from the concrete Ferris wheelbase to a small nearby lake just west of Skinker and Forsyth Boulevards (now covered by buildings), and then the little lake was back-filled. Still, other stories related that those mules might have dragged it to a dumpsite near Wydown Boulevard and University Land in Clayton, where methane gas still emanates from decomposing debris.
rumor
On July 10th, 1893, an electrical fire started in the Cold Storage Building and swept through the entire exposition. The planners had been ill-prepared for such a catastrophe, and within a day, 16 people would be dead, a dozen of them Chicago firefighters who had been trapped by the spreading flames. Several buildings collapsed the last one among them the Machinery Hall. Examining pictures of the Machinery Hall (the Electricity Hall is also a possibility), there is an almost uncanny similarity between the roof arches of those buildings and Dunn’s Bridge.
They did succeed in confirming the location of the Ferris wheel foundation by its large steel bolts and other steel frameworks, but there was no axle. Another remote sensing survey, this time using a ground-probing radar, was conducted and appeared to show something along Alexander Drive just west of Skinker Boulevard. Still, another survey, this time using an infrared scanner, was flown over the area and claimed to be able to see thermal indications of the axle under Alexander Drive just a hundred yards or so from Skinker. Based on that indication, a local TV station sponsored using a backhoe to dig at that site, finding only some clay water pipes.
Sheldon Breiner, with a technical background in geophysical exploration for natural resources, was contacted for yet another try to locate the axle through technological means. He applied one geophysical method, magnetic surveying, to find items of cultural or sometimes strategic interest. Breiner contacted Gene Kiernan, a St. Louis World's Fair Society member, to conduct a magnetic survey over prospective sites in and around the original location of the Ferris wheel. He was introduced to an archaeologist from Washington University, Dr. Carol Diaz-Granados, who had written papers on the subject of the 1904 World's Fair, among other things. We considered the lore and the confirmed background regarding what might have happened to the axle. The dimensions and general ferromagnetic properties of such a piece of steel were sufficiently known to allow me to plan the survey. Breiner was also familiar with the geology of the St. Louis area regarding possible magnetic interference.
The prime areas deemed worth surveying were:
The survey was conducted from 8 AM to 8 PM on Sunday, May 13, 2007, and 8 AM to 2 PM the following day. He initially conducted several short reconnaissance surveys to assess the magnetic noise background, the presence of magnetically disturbing under-street utilities and possible false magnetic targets.
The magnetic target for this survey is large, long, made of steel, and, if still present, is located in a reasonably small area. The fact that it is long and buried horizontally allowed relatively wide spacing of the survey lines. The axle is made from steel and not just iron. Hence, the magnetic anomaly is due to permanent magnetization, which is always much more prominent and accessible to detect and/or map. Similarly, the fact that this object was cast as a single piece of steel rather than several parts produces a large anomaly without self-canceling individually magnetized component parts.
The proposed areas were walked carrying the magnetometer in what is termed 'search mode' where the data are not recorded but observed as one walks, making a note in real-time of anomalies. The sensor on the golf course was carried affixed to the staff with the staff held horizontally about 2 feet above the ground. In the streets, the sensor was carried at about 6 feet. Many anomalies were noted on the golf course, some of which were undoubtedly the steel bolts and fixtures related to the Ferris wheel foundation. However, some significant anomalies were noted under Skinker adjacent to the golf course. It was quickly pointed out that anomalies due to parked (or passing) vehicles were small relative to the vast anomalies noted under Skinker.
The local park on Wydown, due east from the school, had virtually no magnetic anomalies of any kind, though it was suspected as being a possible dumpsite for the Fair. A quick walk-through was carried out in search mode along Wydown Terrace and Alexander Drive, the schoolyard adjacent to Wydown School, and along the east and west heading lanes of Wydown near Skinker and the median strip in between.
The only anomaly in the areas covered that was large enough to evaluate seriously was found under the southbound lanes of Skinker roadway at its intersection with Wydown. This anomaly was first noted on extensions of lines that walked out from the golf course onto Skinker. In the times between traffic flows and stop-light-mediated times, Breiner surveyed all around the site of the anomaly, first in search mode and then, using the differential GPS, in 'survey mode' where the data are recorded. It was essential to see if any other such significant anomalies were possibly associated with it. He surveyed the width of Skinker and the length from just south of Alexander to a hundred yards north of Wydown, finding no other significant anomalies. There was not enough time to conduct a systematic, gridded survey of the remaining golf course section around the Ferris wheelbase or the area northwest of the Ferris wheel foundation.
Many have a story about what has happened to the axle of the famous Observation Wheel. Life and spirit revolved — figuratively and literally — around this icon of days gone by, from its creation for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair to the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. It continued to have a life for the next century, although symbolic. While no one has seen or touched this steel behemoth since its burial in May of 1906, it appears to have been rediscovered less than 200 feet from its last known sighting.
Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.
After the World's Columbian Exposition, the Ferris wheel was moved into the middle of Chicago's northside in 1895, where George Ferris opened "Ferris Wheel Park."
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Click ─► "Ferris Wheel Park" to see the Ferris wheel running in a one-minute film by the famous Lumiere Brothers pioneers of the beginning of moving pictures, and is one of the first films ever shot in Chicago. You'll see how slowly the wheel rotated, verified by the people's walking pace, the streetcars and horse-drawn wagons pace speed.
The Ferris wheel would delight fairgoers once more at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904, the largest World Fair ever held in the country up to 1904, from St. Louis (founded in 1764). Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis & Clark to explore the new Louisiana Territory in May 1804. Two years later, when the explorers returned in September 1806, the city became known as the "Gateway to the West" for the many mountain men, adventurers, and setters who followed the path of Lewis and Clark into the new frontier. The 1904 World's Fair was the centennial celebration of that original historical event that established St. Louis as the de facto "Gateway to the West." The "Gateway Arch," the famous 630-foot Arch on the banks of the Mississippi River, was completed in 1966 to commemorate the city's "Gateway to the West" moniker.
The Ferris wheel (264 feet high) came to a most ignominious end when it succumbed to a wrecking dynamite charge on May 11, 1906. Contrary to the demolition engineers' hopes that it would fall over on its side, it simply crumbled in place.
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| CLICK FOR A FULL-SIZE READABLE IMAGE. |
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MYTH: There is rumor of a letter (circa 1950) from a descendant of an employee of the Chicago House Wrecking Company (later; Harris Brothers Company - Kit Home Sellers), who were contracted to dismantle the 1904 World's Fair that states that the axle was taken back to Chicago and put in the company's yard, and later, in the late 1910s, cut up the axle for scrap.DEBUNKED: A cesium magnetometer located the axle under Skinker Boulevard at Wydown Boulevard and identified it in 2007 (see images below).
Imagine an imagined scenario in 1906 when a city official charged with cleaning up the area and returning to the city's business ordered his crew boss, "Get rid of that hunk of metal. Hide, bury, or do whatever, but I don't want to see it anymore."
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| Size of the axle during the reassembly before the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. |
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A short time after the destruction of the Ferris wheel after the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition was over, Mr. John T. Jones of 703 Grand Boulevard, Iron Mountain, Michigan (built-in 1890 - date razed unknown), a personal friend of George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., was engaged in building a large greenhouse for his wife, Rachel, as an addition to their home. Jones purchased some debris from the Ferris Wheel."It's just been wrecked from the St. Louis Fair. Think of having the original Ferris Wheel – [the] first one in the world – right here. It was the buy of a lifetime. I'll use the girders for the roof and the glass [from the gondola cars] for the windows. Imagine having a real plate glass greenhouse. It'll be the talk of the country," said Jones.
The Ferris wheel metal was used to build the trusses of Dunn's Bridge in Jasper County, Indiana. This is unfounded and very unlikely as the bridge's arches are not concentric. Some claim the metal was from another 1893 World's Fair building.
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| This is all that is left of the Ferris wheel after demolition at St. Louis, MO. |
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| Machinery Hall, 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. |
Using technical means to attempt to locate the axle, Professor Patrick Shore of the Physics Department at nearby Washington University and his class in 1996 conducted a magnetic survey on the golf course in northwest Forest Park (opened in 1876, the 1,371-acre park includes the Missouri History Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis Science Center and Planetarium, St. Louis Zoo, the outdoor Muny Theater, the World's Fair Pavillion, a dozen restaurants, athletic fields & golf courses, and over 35 other attractions today).
They did succeed in confirming the location of the Ferris wheel foundation by its large steel bolts and other steel frameworks, but there was no axle. Another remote sensing survey, this time using a ground-probing radar, was conducted and appeared to show something along Alexander Drive just west of Skinker Boulevard. Still, another survey, this time using an infrared scanner, was flown over the area and claimed to be able to see thermal indications of the axle under Alexander Drive just a hundred yards or so from Skinker. Based on that indication, a local TV station sponsored using a backhoe to dig at that site, finding only some clay water pipes.
Sheldon Breiner, with a technical background in geophysical exploration for natural resources, was contacted for yet another try to locate the axle through technological means. He applied one geophysical method, magnetic surveying, to find items of cultural or sometimes strategic interest. Breiner contacted Gene Kiernan, a St. Louis World's Fair Society member, to conduct a magnetic survey over prospective sites in and around the original location of the Ferris wheel. He was introduced to an archaeologist from Washington University, Dr. Carol Diaz-Granados, who had written papers on the subject of the 1904 World's Fair, among other things. We considered the lore and the confirmed background regarding what might have happened to the axle. The dimensions and general ferromagnetic properties of such a piece of steel were sufficiently known to allow me to plan the survey. Breiner was also familiar with the geology of the St. Louis area regarding possible magnetic interference.
The prime areas deemed worth surveying were:
- That part of the golf course is just east of Skinker Boulevard. south of Forsyth and adjacent to Skinker near the original site of the Ferris wheel
- The debris burial areas near WydownBoulevard . and University Land
- Wydown Boulevard from Skinker to the west for about 400 yards
- Alexander Dr. from Skinker to its intersection with Woodbourne Dr.
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| Proposed areas to conduct magnetic reconnaissance survey, May of 2007. |
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| Sheldon Breiner on Skinker Boulevard with a cesium magnetometer GPS. |
The proposed areas were walked carrying the magnetometer in what is termed 'search mode' where the data are not recorded but observed as one walks, making a note in real-time of anomalies. The sensor on the golf course was carried affixed to the staff with the staff held horizontally about 2 feet above the ground. In the streets, the sensor was carried at about 6 feet. Many anomalies were noted on the golf course, some of which were undoubtedly the steel bolts and fixtures related to the Ferris wheel foundation. However, some significant anomalies were noted under Skinker adjacent to the golf course. It was quickly pointed out that anomalies due to parked (or passing) vehicles were small relative to the vast anomalies noted under Skinker.
The local park on Wydown, due east from the school, had virtually no magnetic anomalies of any kind, though it was suspected as being a possible dumpsite for the Fair. A quick walk-through was carried out in search mode along Wydown Terrace and Alexander Drive, the schoolyard adjacent to Wydown School, and along the east and west heading lanes of Wydown near Skinker and the median strip in between.
The only anomaly in the areas covered that was large enough to evaluate seriously was found under the southbound lanes of Skinker roadway at its intersection with Wydown. This anomaly was first noted on extensions of lines that walked out from the golf course onto Skinker. In the times between traffic flows and stop-light-mediated times, Breiner surveyed all around the site of the anomaly, first in search mode and then, using the differential GPS, in 'survey mode' where the data are recorded. It was essential to see if any other such significant anomalies were possibly associated with it. He surveyed the width of Skinker and the length from just south of Alexander to a hundred yards north of Wydown, finding no other significant anomalies. There was not enough time to conduct a systematic, gridded survey of the remaining golf course section around the Ferris wheelbase or the area northwest of the Ferris wheel foundation.
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| Location of the axle under Skinker Boulevard at its intersection with Wydown Boulevard. |
When the anomaly was finally delineated, it appeared to be caused by a long, possibly horizontal, source, trending in a North-North-East direction, about 200' south of the Ferris wheel's base. The anomaly was more significant than anything originating from sub-street utilities or any other possible industrial source. It was not of geologic origin as much of Eastern Missouri is underlain by limestone, which is usually as close to non-magnetic as any typical rock type.
This size agrees pretty well with my crude estimates, which are mainly circumstantial. The basic fundamentals represent only rough averages accumulated from years of experience with the magnetic effects of iron and steel objects in an urban or industrial context for a variety of unusual industrial, military, and cultural/historical things. Breiner did derive the estimates weeks before arriving on the scene in St. Louis.
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| Location of the axle under Skinker Boulevard. Looking NE towards Forest Park. |
Several profiles were obtained along and across the presumed location of the axle. The profile and the modeled profile based upon a steel cylinder 45 feet long and 3 feet in diameter are shown in the figure. The south end of the axle is at a depth of between 7 and 10 feet beneath the pavement at the location indicated in the images shown here. The north end of the axle is not as well defined and could be somewhat deeper, perhaps as a consequence of halting, in mid-stage, the efforts to bury the axle.
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| 1904 - During the St Louis World's Fair at the Observation Wheel's foundation. Note that there were no streets here in 1904. It was parkland. |
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| 1906 - immediately after the demolition of the Wheel. Still no roads. |
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| 2007- under Skinker Boulevard at Wydown Boulevard. |
Dr. Sheldon Breiner died on October 9, 2019, at his home in Portola Valley, California, near Palo Alto. He was 82 years old.
Dr. Sheldon Breiner, Contributor
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Fossils of the "H Animal" and "Y Animal" discovered at Mazon Creek, near Braidwood, Illinois. A 310 million year old mystery.
The “H Animal," Etacystis Communis.
It was a soft-bodied invertebrate that lived in shallow tropical coastal waters of muddy estuaries (where the tide meets the stream) during the Pennsylvanian geological period, about 310 million years ago. Many exquisitely preserved specimens are found in the ironstone nodules that make up the deposits.
The majority of collecting areas are the spoil heaps of abandoned coal mines, the most famous of which is Peabody Coal Pit 11. Francis Creek shale pit 11 now serves as a cooling pond for the Braidwood nuclear power plant, but with over 100 other localities, specimens still come to light.
It is thought to be a filter-feeding organism that grew throughout its lifetime, achieving a maximum length of 4.3 inches.
The classification is uncertain. The animal had a unique H-shaped body ranging from 3/4 inch to 4.3 inches long, and researchers have suggested a hemichordate (wormlike marine invertebrates) or hydrozoan (relatives of jellyfish) affinity. Examples of the H Animal have been found only in the Mazon Creek (River) fossil beds in Illinois.
The “Y Animal," Escumasia Roryi.
It is a puzzling creature. It has only found in the Peabody Coal Pit 11 of the Mazon Creek formation. The only species of the subfamily, it is Y-shaped, bilaterally symmetrical, soft-bodied and is about 6 inches in length.
It appears to have a mouth slit on the top between the two arms and a second opening on one side of the main body, presumably an anus, though there is no proof that it is an anus. It is attached to the sea floor by a stalk attached to a round base. Oddly, a specimen appears to have a short tube-like structure in between the two arms near the mouth.
Because of the lack of complex structures or apparent internal organs, it is believed that it must have been related to coelenerates (cnidarians) and may have used stinging nematocysts on its arms to capture prey. However, because of its bilateral symmetry and second opening, it can’t fit the technical definition of a coelenerate.
Therefore, it is considered a separate group that may have broken off of the cnidarians and gone extinct as a failed evolutionary experiment. If it were to be classified as a coelenerate, the definition of coelenerate would have to be changed and a new class would have to be added.
Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.
It was a soft-bodied invertebrate that lived in shallow tropical coastal waters of muddy estuaries (where the tide meets the stream) during the Pennsylvanian geological period, about 310 million years ago. Many exquisitely preserved specimens are found in the ironstone nodules that make up the deposits.
It is thought to be a filter-feeding organism that grew throughout its lifetime, achieving a maximum length of 4.3 inches.
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| A little hard to see, but look at the darker "H" in the center of the fossil. |
The “Y Animal," Escumasia Roryi.
It is a puzzling creature. It has only found in the Peabody Coal Pit 11 of the Mazon Creek formation. The only species of the subfamily, it is Y-shaped, bilaterally symmetrical, soft-bodied and is about 6 inches in length.
Therefore, it is considered a separate group that may have broken off of the cnidarians and gone extinct as a failed evolutionary experiment. If it were to be classified as a coelenerate, the definition of coelenerate would have to be changed and a new class would have to be added.
Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.
Friday, June 28, 2019
Illinois' Greatest Fossil Mystery... Solved!
Since 1955, when amateur fossil hunter Francis Tully discovered an unlikely prehistoric creature in a coal mining area near Morris, Illinois, 55 miles south-west of Chicago, the 'thing' that was named Tullimonstrum (Tully monster) has presented one of the great puzzles in paleontology.
Much as the people of Metropolis wondered whether Superman flying overhead was a bird or a plane. Scientists have struggled to classify these fossils that showed traits associated with several disparate animal types and such abnormalities as eyes mounted on an external bar and a long, toothy proboscis.
If you put a worm, a mollusk (snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses), an arthropod (insects, spiders), and a fish in a box and shook it up, then you'd have a Tully monster, in the end. Paraphrased from Carmen Soriano, a paleontologist at Argonne National Laboratory.
The Tully's renown even stretched to the Illinois state legislature, which named it the official state fossil in 1989, some 308 million years after it inhabited the shallow salty waters that turned into Illinois' Mazon Creek geological deposits in Grundy County, one of the richest fossil troves on Earth.
However, Tullimonstrum gregarium has a home on the Tree of Life rather than in the biological category known as the "problematica." Utilizing the synchrotron X-ray machine at Argonne and the Field Museum's collection of 2,000 Tully specimens, a team from those two institutions, Yale University and the American Museum of Natural History announced in a paper published in the journal "Nature" on March 16, 2016, that "The Tully monster is a vertebrate."
b: Reconstruction of Tullimonstrum.
c: Tullimonstrum, oblique lateral view:
Eyb; eyebar;
My; myomeres;
GP; gill pouches;
CF; caudal fin;
No; notochord;
OtL; otic lobe, and OpL; optic lobe of the brain and dorsal fin.
d: Line drawing: black, teeth; brown, lingual organ; light grey, eyebar; dark green, gut and oesophagus; ed, notochord; light green, brain; orange, tectal cartilages; pink, naris; purple, gill pouches; yellow, arcualia; dark blue, myosepta; blue with black stripes, fins with fin rays.
Below that headline, the paper describes Tully as belonging "on the stem lineage to Lampreys (an ancient extant lineage of jawless fish)," a find that "resolves the nature of a soft-bodied fossil which has been debated for more than 50 years."
"This is one of the mysteries that I heard about since I was a kid," said Soriano. "To be able to study, to basically 'unmonsterize' the monster, is really exciting."
"Resolving this is a big deal," said Scott Lidgard, the Field Museum's associate curator of fossil invertebrates and another of the paper's authors. "It's one of the examples used in textbooks around the world as what is called 'problematica,' " creatures that defied ready classification and were sometimes thought to be examples of extinct phyla or animal categories.
"This is kind of a poster child for that sort of evolutionary puzzle," Lidgard said. The finding "changes it from a mystery to a fishlike organism that is probably on the lineage leading to what we would recognize as lampreys."
It's also a big moment for those who study lesser prehistoric animals and realize, said Lidgard, that "we're never going to be as popular as dinosaurs and fossil birds."
The Tully monster is named for its assemblage of features, not for any sort of fearsome size. The biggest of the many specimens that have been found suggested a maximum length of about 18 inches and a typical length of 12 inches.
But because Mazon Creek fossils are so well preserved, there is a lot of Tully to study. Skeletons have not survived, but detailed impressions in stone have.
"If you see the specimens, they are typically well preserved," Soriano said. "It's not that they are a blob in the rock."
Tully, a pipefitter for Texaco and lifelong fossil hound, described his find to the Tribune in a story in 1987, also the year of his death:
"I found two rocks that had cracked open from natural weathering. They held something completely different. I knew right away. I'd never seen anything like it. None of the books had it. I'd never seen it in museums or at rock clubs. So I brought it to Chicago to the Field Museum to see if they could figure out what the devil it was."
The first scientific paper describing the Tully monster and its vivid Latin name came in the mid-1960s from one of Lidgard's predecessors at the museum, who "thought it was a worm," Lidgard said.
Later papers proposed that it was a "free-swimming shell-less snail," he said, and then a conodont, an extinct eel-like creature very rare in the fossil record.
"I've been looking at this thing for 30 years," said Lidgard. "Years ago, I had a stab at it, thinking it might be related to squids. We gave up. We didn't publish anything."
What got the ball rolling again was Lidgard hearing about Victoria McCoy, a Yale grad student exploring the Mazon Creek deposits who would become the paper's lead author.
They met at a 2014 conference, and the following year, an assembled team spent three weeks at the Field Museum studying its Tully specimens.
The Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, southwest of Chicago, came into the picture because of its advanced imaging techniques using the Advanced Photon Source, an electron accelerator and storage ring that "provides ultra-bright, high-energy storage ring-generated x-ray beams for research in almost all scientific disciplines," according to Argonne.
"The thing with these machines is they are incredibly powerful microscopes," Soriano said. "We can get information not only on the morphology of the sample but also on the structure and composition."
It allows people "to see what no one saw before basically," she said.
What the scientists saw as they studied the Argonne imagery, digital photographs of the fossils, and the fossils themselves were characteristics that tied the Tully monster to lampreys.
For instance, a chemical analysis of the eyestalks showed the presence of zinc, "very similar to the material in the eyes of vertebrate fossil fishes," said Lidgard.
"Tully is usually preserved so that you're looking down on its back," he added. "Every so often, you can see its side. In those twisted fossils, we found very few where we think we can distinguish openings we interpret as openings to a particular kind of gill structure present in very primitive fishes like lampreys."
And they were able to find the animal's gut trace, as well as the shadow of its digestive system, in the lower part of the body, which suggested that what had previously been thought to be a gut trace up on the back was, in fact, a notochord, a flexible rod in the back.
That made it a primitive vertebrate, he said. He does not recall a moment where somebody said, "Hey, lamprey!" but recalls that "it became more and more clear," he said. "As those results started coming in, it was pretty convincing immediately."
So if the Tully monster is now a known vertebrate lamprey ancestor with a place in the historical animal record, that raises two big questions:
First, do all those specimens at the Field Museum move out of the invertebrate department?
Paul Mayer, collections manager of invertebrate fossils, laughed. "I've been talking with the vertebrate fossil collection manager," he said. "We'll wait a few years and make sure there's no rebuttal. It's a lot of work to move these things up the stairs to where his collection is."
Question two: Does the Tully monster need to be renamed?
"No, because it's still a monster," said Soriano. "It's something really different from anything we have seen. It's one of a kind. If you return to this idea of a monster as anything strange, it's still strange."
A Tully Monster in Motion.
Much as the people of Metropolis wondered whether Superman flying overhead was a bird or a plane. Scientists have struggled to classify these fossils that showed traits associated with several disparate animal types and such abnormalities as eyes mounted on an external bar and a long, toothy proboscis.
If you put a worm, a mollusk (snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses), an arthropod (insects, spiders), and a fish in a box and shook it up, then you'd have a Tully monster, in the end. Paraphrased from Carmen Soriano, a paleontologist at Argonne National Laboratory.
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| Tullimonstrum gregarium, dorsal view, from an article titled, "The Tully monster is a vertebrate," in the Field Museum of Natural History's "Nature magazine." |
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About 540 million years ago, between the Gondwana and the Laurasia supercontinent [1] periods, when the Earth was about 4 billion years old, Illinois was south of the equator for the second time. Illinois was part of a low-lying basin covered by a shallow, warm tropical sea. As land masses shifted over time, this saltwater became trapped in aquifers that still exist underground today.
However, Tullimonstrum gregarium has a home on the Tree of Life rather than in the biological category known as the "problematica." Utilizing the synchrotron X-ray machine at Argonne and the Field Museum's collection of 2,000 Tully specimens, a team from those two institutions, Yale University and the American Museum of Natural History announced in a paper published in the journal "Nature" on March 16, 2016, that "The Tully monster is a vertebrate."
Morphology and Phylogeny of Tullimonstrum.
CLICK FOR A FULL-SIZE VIEW.
a: Chordate phylogeny including Tullimonstrum gregarium; lampreys in yellow; hagfishes in orange.CLICK FOR A FULL-SIZE VIEW.
b: Reconstruction of Tullimonstrum.
c: Tullimonstrum, oblique lateral view:
Eyb; eyebar;
My; myomeres;
GP; gill pouches;
CF; caudal fin;
No; notochord;
OtL; otic lobe, and OpL; optic lobe of the brain and dorsal fin.
d: Line drawing: black, teeth; brown, lingual organ; light grey, eyebar; dark green, gut and oesophagus; ed, notochord; light green, brain; orange, tectal cartilages; pink, naris; purple, gill pouches; yellow, arcualia; dark blue, myosepta; blue with black stripes, fins with fin rays.
Below that headline, the paper describes Tully as belonging "on the stem lineage to Lampreys (an ancient extant lineage of jawless fish)," a find that "resolves the nature of a soft-bodied fossil which has been debated for more than 50 years."
"This is one of the mysteries that I heard about since I was a kid," said Soriano. "To be able to study, to basically 'unmonsterize' the monster, is really exciting."
"Resolving this is a big deal," said Scott Lidgard, the Field Museum's associate curator of fossil invertebrates and another of the paper's authors. "It's one of the examples used in textbooks around the world as what is called 'problematica,' " creatures that defied ready classification and were sometimes thought to be examples of extinct phyla or animal categories.
"This is kind of a poster child for that sort of evolutionary puzzle," Lidgard said. The finding "changes it from a mystery to a fishlike organism that is probably on the lineage leading to what we would recognize as lampreys."
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| An artist's reconstruction shows the Tully Monster, a type of jawless fish called a lamprey, as it would have looked 310 million years ago in this image. |
The Tully monster is named for its assemblage of features, not for any sort of fearsome size. The biggest of the many specimens that have been found suggested a maximum length of about 18 inches and a typical length of 12 inches.
But because Mazon Creek fossils are so well preserved, there is a lot of Tully to study. Skeletons have not survived, but detailed impressions in stone have.
"If you see the specimens, they are typically well preserved," Soriano said. "It's not that they are a blob in the rock."
Tully, a pipefitter for Texaco and lifelong fossil hound, described his find to the Tribune in a story in 1987, also the year of his death:
"I found two rocks that had cracked open from natural weathering. They held something completely different. I knew right away. I'd never seen anything like it. None of the books had it. I'd never seen it in museums or at rock clubs. So I brought it to Chicago to the Field Museum to see if they could figure out what the devil it was."
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| Another artist's artwork shows the Tully Monster. |
Later papers proposed that it was a "free-swimming shell-less snail," he said, and then a conodont, an extinct eel-like creature very rare in the fossil record.
"I've been looking at this thing for 30 years," said Lidgard. "Years ago, I had a stab at it, thinking it might be related to squids. We gave up. We didn't publish anything."
What got the ball rolling again was Lidgard hearing about Victoria McCoy, a Yale grad student exploring the Mazon Creek deposits who would become the paper's lead author.
They met at a 2014 conference, and the following year, an assembled team spent three weeks at the Field Museum studying its Tully specimens.
The Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, southwest of Chicago, came into the picture because of its advanced imaging techniques using the Advanced Photon Source, an electron accelerator and storage ring that "provides ultra-bright, high-energy storage ring-generated x-ray beams for research in almost all scientific disciplines," according to Argonne.
"The thing with these machines is they are incredibly powerful microscopes," Soriano said. "We can get information not only on the morphology of the sample but also on the structure and composition."
It allows people "to see what no one saw before basically," she said.
What the scientists saw as they studied the Argonne imagery, digital photographs of the fossils, and the fossils themselves were characteristics that tied the Tully monster to lampreys.
For instance, a chemical analysis of the eyestalks showed the presence of zinc, "very similar to the material in the eyes of vertebrate fossil fishes," said Lidgard.
"Tully is usually preserved so that you're looking down on its back," he added. "Every so often, you can see its side. In those twisted fossils, we found very few where we think we can distinguish openings we interpret as openings to a particular kind of gill structure present in very primitive fishes like lampreys."
That made it a primitive vertebrate, he said. He does not recall a moment where somebody said, "Hey, lamprey!" but recalls that "it became more and more clear," he said. "As those results started coming in, it was pretty convincing immediately."
So if the Tully monster is now a known vertebrate lamprey ancestor with a place in the historical animal record, that raises two big questions:
First, do all those specimens at the Field Museum move out of the invertebrate department?
Paul Mayer, collections manager of invertebrate fossils, laughed. "I've been talking with the vertebrate fossil collection manager," he said. "We'll wait a few years and make sure there's no rebuttal. It's a lot of work to move these things up the stairs to where his collection is."
Question two: Does the Tully monster need to be renamed?
"No, because it's still a monster," said Soriano. "It's something really different from anything we have seen. It's one of a kind. If you return to this idea of a monster as anything strange, it's still strange."
ADDITIONAL READING: Prehistoric Saltwater Shark Nursery Fossils Found in Illinois.
Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.
[1] EARTH'S SUPERCONTINENTS HISTORY:
Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.
[1] EARTH'S SUPERCONTINENTS HISTORY:
Vaalbara...............3,636–2,803 (million years ago)Ur.....................2,803–2,408 (million years ago)Kenorland..............2,720–2,114 (million years ago)Arctica................2,114–1,995 (million years ago)Atlantica..............1,991-1,124 (million years ago)Columbia(Nuna).........1,820–1,350 (million years ago)Rodinia................1,130–750 (million years ago)Pannotia...............633-573 (million years ago)Gondwana...............596-578 (million years ago)Laurasia & Gondwana....472-451 (million years ago)Pangaea................335-175 (million years ago)
The Tully monster was a soft-bodied invertebrate found only in Illinois and is the official Illinois state fossil. Look how cute he is!
You can own your own cute 12" soft-bodied Tully monster plushy from Paleozoic Pals.
The Kinderhook plates were discovered in 1843 in an Indian mound near Kinderhook, Illinois.
The Kinderhook plates are a set of six small, bell-shaped brass pieces with strange engravings claimed to have been discovered in 1843 in an Indian mound near Kinderhook, Illinois.
Purported Discovery
On April 16, 1843, Robert Wiley, a merchant living in Kinderhook, began to dig a deep shaft in the center of an Indian mound near the village. It was reported in the Quincy Whig that the reason for Wiley's sudden interest in archaeology was that he had dreamed for three nights in a row that there was treasure buried beneath the mound. At first, he undertook the excavation alone, and reached a depth of about ten feet before he abandoned the work, finding it too laborious an undertaking.
On April 23, he returned with a group of ten or twelve companions to assist him. They soon reached a bed of limestone, apparently charred by fire. Another two feet down, they discovered human bones, also charred, and "six plates of brass of a bell shape, each having a hole near the small end, and a ring through them all, and clasped with two clasps". A member of the excavation team, W. P. Harris, took the plates home, washed them, and treated them with sulphuric acid. Once they were clean, they were found to be covered in strange characters resembling hieroglyphics.
The plates were briefly exhibited in the city, and then sent on to Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint (Mormon) movement. Twenty years earlier, on September 22, 1823, Smith claimed to have uncovered a set of golden plates, and, according to Latter Day Saint belief, translated them into the Book of Mormon. The finders of the Kinderhook plates, and the general public, were keen to know if Smith would be able to decipher the symbols on the Kinderhook plates as well. The Times and Seasons, a Latter Day Saint publication, claimed that the existence of the Kinderhook plates lent further credibility to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Parley Pratt wrote that the plates contained Egyptian engravings and "the genealogy of one of the ancient Jaredites back to Ham the son of Noah."
Smith's Response
Smith's private secretary, William Clayton, recorded that upon receiving the plates, Smith sent for his "Hebrew Bible & Lexicon," suggesting that he was going to attempt to translate the plates by conventional means, rather than by use of a seer stone or direct revelation. On May 1st, Clayton wrote in his journal:
The Kinderhook plates were presumed lost, but for decades The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) published facsimiles of them in its official History of the Church. In 1920, one of the plates came into the possession of the Chicago Historical Society (now the Chicago History Museum). In 1966, this remaining plate was tested at Brigham Young University. The inscriptions matched facsimiles of the plate published contemporaneously, but the question remained whether this was an original Kinderhook plate, or a later copy.
Though there was little evidence of whether the Kinderhook Plates were ancient or a contemporary fabrication, some within the LDS Church believed them to be genuine. The September 1962 Improvement Era, an official magazine of the church, ran an article by Welby W. Ricks stating that the Kinderhook plates were genuine. In 1979, apostle Mark E. Petersen wrote a book called "Those Gold Plates!" In the first chapter, Peterson describes various ancient cultures that have written records on metal plates.
Then Peterson claims: "There are the Kinderhook plates, too, found in America and now in the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. Controversy has surrounded these plates and their engravings, but most experts agree they are of ancient vintage."
In 1980, Professor D. Lynn Johnson of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University examined the remaining plate. He used microscopy and various scanning devices and determined that the tolerances and composition of its metal proved entirely consistent with the facilities available in a 19th-century blacksmith shop and, more importantly, found traces of nitrogen in what were clearly nitric acid-etched grooves.
This matches what was stated in an 1879 letter to James T. Cobb, in which Wilbur Fugate confesses to the hoax: "Wiley and I made the hieroglyphics by making impressions on beeswax and filling them with acid and putting it on the plates. When they were finished we put them together with rust made of nitric acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop iron, covering them completely with rust". According to Fugate, Wiley had planted the plates at the bottom of the hole he had dug in the mound, before fetching a group of others to witness the discovery.
In addition, Johnson discovered evidence that this particular plate was among those examined by early Mormons, including Smith, and not a later copy. One of the features of the plate was the presence of small dents in the surface caused by a hexagonally-shaped tool. Johnson noticed that one of these dents had inadvertently been interpreted in the facsimile as a stroke in one of the characters. If the plate owned by the Chicago Historical Society had been a copy made from the facsimiles in History of the Church, that stroke in that character would have been etched, like the rest of the characters. He concluded that this plate was one that Smith examined, that it was not of ancient origin, and that it was in fact etched with acid, not engraved.
In 1981, the official magazine of the LDS Church ran an article stating that the plates were a hoax, and asserted that there was no proof that Smith made any attempt to translate the plates: "There is no evidence that the Prophet Joseph Smith ever took up the matter with the Lord, as he did when working with the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham."
The Confession
According to Wilbur Fugate in 1879, the plates were carefully forged by himself and two other men from Kinderhook, Bridge Whitten and Robert Wiley, who were testing the validity of the claims made by Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, at that time headquartered in Nauvoo. According to Latter Day Saint belief, the Book of Mormon was originally translated by Smith from a record engraved on golden plates by ancient indigenous people.
Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.
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| CLICK FOR A FULL-SIZE IMAGE. |
On April 16, 1843, Robert Wiley, a merchant living in Kinderhook, began to dig a deep shaft in the center of an Indian mound near the village. It was reported in the Quincy Whig that the reason for Wiley's sudden interest in archaeology was that he had dreamed for three nights in a row that there was treasure buried beneath the mound. At first, he undertook the excavation alone, and reached a depth of about ten feet before he abandoned the work, finding it too laborious an undertaking.
On April 23, he returned with a group of ten or twelve companions to assist him. They soon reached a bed of limestone, apparently charred by fire. Another two feet down, they discovered human bones, also charred, and "six plates of brass of a bell shape, each having a hole near the small end, and a ring through them all, and clasped with two clasps". A member of the excavation team, W. P. Harris, took the plates home, washed them, and treated them with sulphuric acid. Once they were clean, they were found to be covered in strange characters resembling hieroglyphics.
The plates were briefly exhibited in the city, and then sent on to Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint (Mormon) movement. Twenty years earlier, on September 22, 1823, Smith claimed to have uncovered a set of golden plates, and, according to Latter Day Saint belief, translated them into the Book of Mormon. The finders of the Kinderhook plates, and the general public, were keen to know if Smith would be able to decipher the symbols on the Kinderhook plates as well. The Times and Seasons, a Latter Day Saint publication, claimed that the existence of the Kinderhook plates lent further credibility to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Parley Pratt wrote that the plates contained Egyptian engravings and "the genealogy of one of the ancient Jaredites back to Ham the son of Noah."
Smith's Response
Smith's private secretary, William Clayton, recorded that upon receiving the plates, Smith sent for his "Hebrew Bible & Lexicon," suggesting that he was going to attempt to translate the plates by conventional means, rather than by use of a seer stone or direct revelation. On May 1st, Clayton wrote in his journal:
I have seen 6 brass plates... covered with ancient characters of language containing from 30 to 40 on each side of the plates. Prest J. [Joseph Smith] has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth.The History of the Church also states Smith said the following:
I have translated a portion of [the plates] and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth.Stanley B. Kimball says the statement found in History of the Church could have been an altered version of William Clayton's statement, placing Smith in the first person. Diane Wirth, writing in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon (2:210), states:
"A first-person narrative was apparently a common practice of this time period when a biographical work was being compiled. Since such words were never penned by the Prophet, they cannot be uncritically accepted as his words or his opinion."Rediscovery, Analysis, and Classification as a Hoax
The Kinderhook plates were presumed lost, but for decades The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) published facsimiles of them in its official History of the Church. In 1920, one of the plates came into the possession of the Chicago Historical Society (now the Chicago History Museum). In 1966, this remaining plate was tested at Brigham Young University. The inscriptions matched facsimiles of the plate published contemporaneously, but the question remained whether this was an original Kinderhook plate, or a later copy.
Though there was little evidence of whether the Kinderhook Plates were ancient or a contemporary fabrication, some within the LDS Church believed them to be genuine. The September 1962 Improvement Era, an official magazine of the church, ran an article by Welby W. Ricks stating that the Kinderhook plates were genuine. In 1979, apostle Mark E. Petersen wrote a book called "Those Gold Plates!" In the first chapter, Peterson describes various ancient cultures that have written records on metal plates.
Then Peterson claims: "There are the Kinderhook plates, too, found in America and now in the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. Controversy has surrounded these plates and their engravings, but most experts agree they are of ancient vintage."
In 1980, Professor D. Lynn Johnson of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University examined the remaining plate. He used microscopy and various scanning devices and determined that the tolerances and composition of its metal proved entirely consistent with the facilities available in a 19th-century blacksmith shop and, more importantly, found traces of nitrogen in what were clearly nitric acid-etched grooves.
This matches what was stated in an 1879 letter to James T. Cobb, in which Wilbur Fugate confesses to the hoax: "Wiley and I made the hieroglyphics by making impressions on beeswax and filling them with acid and putting it on the plates. When they were finished we put them together with rust made of nitric acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop iron, covering them completely with rust". According to Fugate, Wiley had planted the plates at the bottom of the hole he had dug in the mound, before fetching a group of others to witness the discovery.
In addition, Johnson discovered evidence that this particular plate was among those examined by early Mormons, including Smith, and not a later copy. One of the features of the plate was the presence of small dents in the surface caused by a hexagonally-shaped tool. Johnson noticed that one of these dents had inadvertently been interpreted in the facsimile as a stroke in one of the characters. If the plate owned by the Chicago Historical Society had been a copy made from the facsimiles in History of the Church, that stroke in that character would have been etched, like the rest of the characters. He concluded that this plate was one that Smith examined, that it was not of ancient origin, and that it was in fact etched with acid, not engraved.
In 1981, the official magazine of the LDS Church ran an article stating that the plates were a hoax, and asserted that there was no proof that Smith made any attempt to translate the plates: "There is no evidence that the Prophet Joseph Smith ever took up the matter with the Lord, as he did when working with the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham."
The Confession
According to Wilbur Fugate in 1879, the plates were carefully forged by himself and two other men from Kinderhook, Bridge Whitten and Robert Wiley, who were testing the validity of the claims made by Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, at that time headquartered in Nauvoo. According to Latter Day Saint belief, the Book of Mormon was originally translated by Smith from a record engraved on golden plates by ancient indigenous people.
Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.
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