Monthly Archives: November 2011

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: an orthid brachiopod (Upper Ordovician of Indiana)

This beautiful brachiopod is Vinlandostrophia ponderosa (Foerste, 1909), an orthid brachiopod from the Maysvillian (Upper Ordovician) of southern Indiana. Until recently it had been traditionally known as Platystrophia ponderosa until a critical paper by Zuykov and Harper (2007) investigated the … Continue reading

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Wooster Geologist on the Crampton’s Gap Battlefield in northern Maryland

In September 1862, Union forces under General George B. McClellan pursued General Robert E. Lee‘s Army of Northern Virginia through northwestern Maryland. Lee had invaded Maryland to demoralize the North ahead of the November elections, and to convince Europe that … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a baculitid ammonite (Cretaceous of Wyoming)

This is a specimen I often place on my Invertebrate Paleontology course lab tests. It is the “straight” ammonite Baculites, which is common enough, but the shell and internal walls (septa) have dissolved completely away, leaving this strangely articulated set … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: an Italian keyhole limpet (Pliocene of Cyprus)

This week’s fossil is a beautiful little gastropod (snail) scientifically known as Diodora italica (Defrance, 1820), and commonly as the Italian Keyhole Limpet. I collected it with Steve Dornbos (’97) during the 1996 Keck Geology Expedition to Cyprus, where it … Continue reading

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