Monthly Archives: August 2012

Wooster Geologists begin the 2012-2013 school year

WOOSTER, OHIO–Always so much fun to begin a new year with the Wooster Geologists. The happy people above belong to the Geology Club in our annual group photo. This semester we are missing our treasured colleague Shelley Judge who is … Continue reading

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Classes begin again for Wooster Geologists

The happy students above are in our 8:00 a.m. History of Life course (Geology 100). They are the first class to use our newly-renovated Scovel 105 room. To remind you what it used to look like — This new room … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: an enigmatic set of tubes (Middle Jurassic of Poland)

The fossils this week celebrate the appearance of an article in the latest issue of Palaios authored by an international team led by my good friend and colleague Michał Zatoń (University of Silesia, Poland). The fossils are strange polka-dotted tubes … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a cameloid footprint (Miocene of California)

This fossil is from near my hometown of Barstow, California. It was collected many years ago loose in talus from the Barstow Formation (Barstovian, Miocene). I note this carefully because today collecting such specimens from the Fossil Beds of the … Continue reading

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Upside-down and inside-out: Cryptic skeletobiont communities from the Late Ordovician of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky — An abstract submitted to the Geological Society of America for the 2012 annual meeting

Editor’s note: The Wooster Geologists in Indiana this summer wrote an abstract for the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, this November. The following is from student guest blogger Kit Price in the format required for … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a bifoliate bryozoan (Upper Ordovician of Indiana, USA)

The specimen above is a species within the trepostome bryozoan genus Peronopora Nicholson, 1881. I don’t know which species because that would require me to slice it open and examine its microscopic skeletal details. (A reason why trepostome bryozoans are … Continue reading

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Grand Canyon Expedition 2012

This summer (26 July through 2 August) I had the pleasure to serve as a guest geologist on a rafting trip to the Grand Canyon. The trip logistics were engineered by Doug Drushal under the auspices of Environmental Experiences, Inc. … Continue reading

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Patchiness and ecological structure in a Middle Jurassic equatorial crinoid-brachiopod community (Matmor Formation, Callovian, southern Israel) — An abstract submitted to the Geological Society of America for the 2012 annual meeting

Editor’s note: The Wooster Geologists in Israel this spring wrote abstracts for the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, this November. The following is from student guest blogger Melissa Torma in the format required for GSA … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a beautiful phacopid trilobite (Middle Devonian of Ohio, USA)

Trilobites are always favorite fossils, especially big bug-eyed ones like Phacops rana (Green, 1832) shown above. It is, in fact, the state fossil of Pennsylvania after a petition from schoolchildren in 1988. This specimen is from the Middle Devonian of … Continue reading

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A pleasant and productive geological walk in the woods

WOOSTER, OHIO–One of the best parts of my job is answering questions from the public about rocks and fossils. Now that I’m Secretary of the Paleontological Society, I get queries every day about something or other. (And since my brief … Continue reading

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