The
gallery below will contain a mere sampling of more than 400
flora and 300 fauna that have been identified in the Mazon
Creek assemblage. The astonishing diversity includes cnidarians,
echinoderms, worms, snails, clams, shrimps, eurypterids, fish,
hexapoda (including insects, millipedes, centipedes), arachnids
(scorpions and spiders) amphibians, and horseshoe.
The
majority of the Mazon Creek collecting areas are the spoil
heaps of abandoned coal mines, and the most famous of these
is Peabody Coal Pit 11. Pit 11 now serves as a cooling pond
for the Braidwood nuclear power plant, but with over 100 other
localities, specimens still are found.