Author Archives: Mark Wilson

About Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson is a Professor of Geology at The College of Wooster. He specializes in invertebrate paleontology, carbonate sedimentology, and stratigraphy. He also is an expert on pseudoscience, especially creationism.

An ancient name remembered

In the summer of 2018 I traveled to Wales for a conference in Cardiff. Immediately afterwards I visited my dear fiends Caroline and Tim Palmer in Aberystwyth, and they gave me a tour of Welsh sites they found particularly interesting. … Continue reading

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Meet two new Ordovician fossil species from Estonia — a cover story

The conical fossil above on the cover of the latest issue of Palaeoworld is the paratype of Conchicolites parcecostatis, a new Ordovician (Katian) cornulitid species from the Korgesaare Formation, Sutlema quarry, Estonia. It is tiny, only about two millimeters long. … Continue reading

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Two new Upper Ordovician bryozoan papers appeared this week

Readers of this blog will remember Kate Runciman, a 2022 graduate of The College of Wooster and now a graduate student at the University of Cambridge. Her Independent Study thesis (after peer review and revisions) has now been published in … Continue reading

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Paleoecology class at Wooster finishes the semester in great style

I was very fortunate this semester to have such a fine class of paleoecologists. This course broadly covers the Earth’s ecological history, so it consists of principles, theories and processes illuminated with case studies, all strung along the thread of … Continue reading

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A delightful little field trip in Ohio with a Polish-American team

Today was astonishingly beautiful in Ohio: bright blue skies and the peak of fall leaf colors. By happy circumstance, I had three Polish paleontologist friends visiting Wooster after the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh last week. Greg … Continue reading

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Freshwater sponge and diatom team presents at the annual Geological Society of America meeting in Pittsburgh

This summer Garrett Robertson and Minnie Pozefsky performed superb research on the sponges and diatoms in a core from Brown’s Lake near Shreve, Ohio. Their project is summarized here. Today Garrett presented their work, along with others on the NSF-funded … Continue reading

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The distinguished paleontologist Dr. Julia Clarke visits Wooster’s Earth Sciences department.

The distinguished paleontologist Dr. Julia Clarke visited our Paleoecology lab in Wooster yesterday. She was there as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. She was wonderful with her several fascinating talks and many interactions with our students. Everybody is happy … Continue reading

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Work continues on our Ordovician paleoecology project

The Fall 2023 Paleoecology class is continuing to work on its Upper Ordovician fossil collections from our field trip at the beginning of the semester. Part of the class is shown above sorting their specimens and identifying them as precisely … Continue reading

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A Wooster Geologist visits Fallingwater, southwestern Pennsylvania

While on our short Fall Break vacation in Pennsylvania, my wife, daughter and I visited the iconic Fallingwater. It must be one of the best known family houses short of Windsor Castle. Fallingwater is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and … Continue reading

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Wooster Geologist at Fort Ligonier, Pennsylvania: Choosing your ground geologically

This afternoon, the first day of Fall Break at The College of Wooster, my family began a weekend excursion to southern Pennsylvania — our first vacation since the pandemic. We first visited one of my favorite reconstructed frontier outposts: Fort … Continue reading

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