Monthly Archives: October 2014

Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Upper Carboniferous seed casts from northeastern Ohio

We haven’t had a paleobotanical fossil of the week for awhile, so here are a couple of nice seed casts from the Upper Carboniferous Massillon Sandstone exposed near Youngstown, Ohio. They fall within the “form genus” Trigonocarpus Brongniart 1828. A … Continue reading

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An Epic Geologic Competition in Cuyahoga Valley National Park

VIRGINIA KENDALL, CUYAHOGA VALLEY NATIONAL PARK (CVNP) — What an absolutely awesome day for geology in the field!!  One of my geologic mentors once told me that “every day in the field is a day of vacation”, and today proved … Continue reading

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Wooster Geologists return to the Cedar Creek Bog and Excavation Site

WOOSTER, OHIO–Greg Wiles and I got to experience a bit of field archaeology today at the Cedar Creek Mastodon excavation site. Greg’s Climate change class has visited the site and its associated bog twice this semester: once to do some … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: A pair of molded nautiloids from the Upper Ordovician of northern Kentucky

Two nautiloids are preserved in the above image of a slab from the Upper Ordovician of northern Kentucky. (I wish I knew which specific locality. This is why paleontologists are such fanatics about labeling specimens.) The top internal mold (meaning … Continue reading

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Wooster Geologists at the 2014 Annual Geological Society of America Meeting in Vancouver, Canada

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA — Wooster geologists (faculty, students, alumni and friends) gathered for the traditional Monday night event at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America.

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Bivalve borings, bioclaustrations and symbiosis in corals from the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of southern Israel

The stark black-and-white of these images are a clue that the fossil this week has been described in a paper. Above is the scleractinian coral Aspidiscus cristatus (Lamarck, 1801) from the En Yorqe’am Formation (Cenomanian, Upper Cretaceous) of southern Israel. … Continue reading

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The geological setting of Fort Necessity, Pennsylvania

On July 3, 1754, colonial lieutenant Colonel George Washington fought and lost a small battle on this site in southwestern Pennsylvania. He and his 400 men had built this makeshift fort about a month before in anticipation of an attack … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: An early bryozoan on a Middle Ordovician hardground from Utah

Last week I presented eocrinoid holdfasts on carbonate hardgrounds from the Kanosh Formation (Middle Ordovician) in west-central Utah. This week we have a thick and strangely featureless bryozoan from the same hardgrounds. It is very common on these surfaces, forming … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Eocrinoid holdfasts on a Middle Ordovician hardground from Utah

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, several students and I did fieldwork in the Middle Ordovician Kanosh Formation in west-central Utah. One year we were joined by my friend Tim Palmer of the University of Aberystwyth. Together, Chris … Continue reading

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In the footsteps of Charles Darwin: Geological excursion into the Central Andes

MENDOZA, ARGENTINA–Today I had one of the finest geological field trips in my life. The scenery was stunning, the geology extraordinary, and the history deeply moving. Being able to share the experience with so many of my geologist friends, old … Continue reading

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