Monthly Archives: August 2014

First Wooster paleontology field trip of the year: the glorious Ordovician of Ohio

Today the Invertebrate Paleontology class at The College of Wooster drove south to one of our favorite outcrops: the Waynesville, Liberty and Whitewater Formations (= Bull Fork Formation) at the emergency spillway in Caesar Creek State Park. I enjoy taking … Continue reading

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Wooster Geologists begin the 2014-2015 school year

What a fine group of geologists we had at the first meeting of the College of Wooster Geology Club this week. We have an ambitious year ahead of us with outside speakers, student presentations, course field trips, and our biennial … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Orthid brachiopods from the Middle Devonian of New York

On the first day of the Invertebrate Paleontology course at Wooster, I give all the students a fossil to identify as best they can. Everyone gets the same kind of specimen, and they can use any means to put as … Continue reading

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Toward an Isopach Map of the Cedar Creek Mastodon Bog

Wooster’s Climate Change class is starting the semester by  coring a bog adjacent to a recent Mastodon find in Morrow County, Ohio. The Mastodon work and related excavation is being led by Nigel Brush, University of Ashland.  Above is a … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Remanié fossils in the Lower Cretaceous of south-central England

The last two editions were about a bryozoan and borings from the Faringdon Sponge Gravels (Lower Cretaceous, Upper Aptian) of south-central England. This week we have some Jurassic fossils from the same unit. That sounds a bit daft at first … Continue reading

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From the Russian wilderness to the big city!

Guest Blogger: Sarah Frederick (’15) Arriving in Moscow was a sharp return to reality. Suddenly all of the things that had come to feel normal while we were in Kamchatka – the winding gravel roads and little towns with random … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Abundant borings in Early Cretaceous cobbles from south-central England

Last week I described a cyclostome bryozoan on the outside of a quartz cobble from the Faringdon Sponge Gravels (Lower Cretaceous, Upper Aptian) of south-central England near the town of Faringdon. This week I’m featuring a variety of heavily-bored calcareous … Continue reading

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The power of hand-held x-ray fluorescence analysis comes to Wooster

WOOSTER, OHIO–Dr. Meagen Pollock, our mineralogist-petrologist and instrument scientist extraordinaire, should be writing this post, but she was off campus during this event. It is left to the paleontologist, of all people, to file this report. Despite my technological naïveté … Continue reading

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Coring Across Kamchatka

Guest Blogger: Sarah Frederick (’15) After traversing every stretch of road within Kamchatka at least twice, 5 bear sitings, and becoming intimately familiar with Kamchatka mosquitoes (they come in three sizes!), we are on our way to Moscow. All in … Continue reading

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Volcanoes, Mosquitoes, and Bears, Oh My!

Guest Blogger: Sarah Frederick (’15) After three weeks in Russia it sure feels great to be back on US soil! Since we didn’t have internet access during this expedition, our blog posts come a bit delayed. Here is a bit … Continue reading

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