Tag Archives: ichnology

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a nestling bivalve (Pleistocene of The Bahamas)

Mark Wilson April 22, 2012 1:48 am

This weathered and encrusted shell was pulled from a round hole bored in a Pleistocene reef (about 125,000 years old) exposed on San Salvador Island, The Bahamas. It is Coralliophaga coralliophaga (Gmelin 1791), a derived venerid bivalve (a type of … Continue reading →

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A Drool-Worthy College Museum

mpollock April 11, 2012 9:00 am

AMHERST, MA – Last weekend, some Wooster Geologists attended the Keck Symposium at Amherst College and were awed by their geology museum. The Beneski Museum of Natural History  is housed in a modern building and covers three floors, displaying over 1,700 specimens. The museum … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: An asteroid trace fossil from the Devonian of northeastern Ohio

Mark Wilson February 12, 2012 1:31 am

It is pretty obvious what made this excellent trace fossil: an asteroid echinoderm. (The term “asteroid” sounds odd here, but it is the technical term for a typical sea star.) The above is Asteriacites stelliformis Osgood, 1970, from the Chagrin … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: barnacle borings (Middle Jurassic of Israel)

Mark Wilson August 7, 2011 1:49 am

Tiny little trace fossils this week in a Jurassic crinoid stem from the Matmor Formation of the Negev Desert. They are borings produced by barnacles, which are sedentary crustaceans more typically found in conical shells of their own making. These … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Ancient shrimp burrows (Middle Jurassic of Israel)

Mark Wilson July 10, 2011 1:01 am

This week we have a trace fossil, the burrow Thalassinoides. It is represented by one of my favorite images, reproduced above, showing a very large Thalassinoides suevicus in the Zohar Formation (Middle Jurassic, Callovian) of Makhtesh Qatan in the Negev … Continue reading →

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Bioerosion on oysters across the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary in Alabama and Mississippi (USA) (Senior Independent Study Thesis by Megan Innis)

Mark Wilson April 8, 2011 2:59 pm

Editor’s note: Senior Independent Study (I.S.) is a year-long program at The College of Wooster in which each student completes a research project and thesis with a faculty mentor.  We particularly enjoy I.S. in the Geology Department because there are … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A brittle star trace fossil from the Jurassic of Utah

Mark Wilson February 13, 2011 1:24 am

This week we have a trace fossil that looks almost exactly like the animal that made it. A trace fossil is evidence of organism activity recorded in the rock record. The photograph above shows one of my favorite specimens: Asteriacites … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A chewed-up leaf (Upper Cretaceous of Kansas)

Mark Wilson February 6, 2011 1:17 am

This week’s fossil is a departure from our usual set of marine invertebrate animals. Above is a leaf of Viburnum lesquereuxii from the Dakota Formation of Ellsworth County, Kansas. The rocks enclosing it are from the Upper Cretaceous Cenomanian Stage, … Continue reading →

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Thoroughly bored at GSA: A Wooster Geologist Faculty Talk

Mark Wilson October 31, 2010 5:12 pm

DENVER, COLORADO — How I very much enjoy those few minutes AFTER giving a presentation, especially a Geological Society of America talk. That sense of renewed life, the rush of completing a task which was months in preparation, and the … Continue reading →

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