Fern Leaf Fossil from Mazon Creek / Coal City, IL- Pecopteris- 5" x 2.5" x 1.25"

Description

This is an absolutely gorgeous Fern Leaf Fossil from Mazon Creek / Coal City, IL-- double-sided, complete and with fine detail, including leaflet veins. It is a  Pecopteris-- I believe designated today as a Pecopteris unita or perhaps Pecopteris acadica because of the remarkably crenulated leaf margins-- The individual veins in the individual leaflets on many of the leaves are even visible to the unaided eye. If not museum quality, close to it.  Dimensions are about 5" x 2.5" x 1.25"; and weight is about 1.25 pounds. See the images.
This is one of two excellent Pecopteris specimens I found -  the other was sold recently - while fossil-hunting or prospecting with my parents in the mid-1950's in the Mazon City / Coal City open-pit coal mine slag piles. At the time, I cleaned it, opened it with a fossil-hunter's hammer and exhibited it ever since-- more than 60 years. Color is a brownish-iron, because it was imbedded in the Ironstone or iron carbonate nodule which holds it. This species of fern-tree is believed to have become extinct, after proliferating in the Mazon Creek swamps 300+ million years ago-- during the mid-Pennsylvanian epoch, some 251+ million years ago during the Permian. It thrived in a very swampy, hot environment, close to or actually what we call Tropical today, but climate changes came along and ended that.
The condition of this great specimen is considered "Used" by eBay-- but only because it was buried 251+ million years ago, fossilized, dug up, cleaned and opened by me 60+ years ago, and exhibited ever since. My wife and I retired and are down-sizing our collection.
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