Author Archives: mwilson

About mwilson

Mark Wilson is an emeritus 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.

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Encrusting craniid brachiopods (Upper Ordovician of southeastern Indiana)

mwilson March 10, 2017 12:01 am

The two irregular patches above are brachiopods known as Petrocrania scabiosa encrusting the ventral valve of yet another brachiopod (Rafinesquina). That species name “scabiosa” is evocative if not a little unpleasant — it is also the root of the English … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Mysterious tentaculitids (Devonian of Maryland)

mwilson March 3, 2017 12:03 am

The sharp little conical fossils above are common Paleozoic fossils, especially in the Devonian. They are tentaculitids now most commonly placed in the Class Tentaculitoidea Ljashenko 1957. Tentaculitids appeared in the Ordovician and disappeared sometime around the end of the … Continue reading →

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Dr. Rob Thieler delivers the 36th annual Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lecture at Wooster

mwilson March 2, 2017 11:21 am

One of the pleasures of being in the Geology Department at The College of Wooster is that we have the annual Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lecture series. These presentations, given in honor of the late Professor Osgood, have significantly … Continue reading →

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Professors Greg Wiles and Meagen Pollock earn a field experience grant from the Keck Geology Consortium

mwilson February 26, 2017 3:33 pm

Wooster, Ohio — Two Wooster Geology Professors, Meagen Pollock and Greg Wiles, have a exciting new grant from the Keck Geology Consortium to fund a five-week research program for first-year and sophomore students interested in the Earth Sciences. The experience … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A scaphitid ammonite (Late Cretaceous of Mississippi)

mwilson February 24, 2017 12:01 am

The beauty above is Discoscaphites iris (Conrad, 1858) from the Owl Creek Formation of Ripley, Mississippi. Megan Innis and I collected it during our expedition to the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary in the southern United States last summer. It is a significant … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A stromatoporoid (Middle Devonian of central Ohio)

mwilson February 17, 2017 12:01 am

Stromatoporoids are very common fossils in the Silurian and Devonian of Ohio and Indiana, especially in carbonate rocks like the Columbus Limestone (from which the above specimen was collected). Wooster geologists encountered them frequently on our Estonia expeditions in the … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A receptaculitid (Middle Ordovician of Missouri)

mwilson February 10, 2017 12:02 am

This week’s fossil is a long-standing paleontological mystery. Above is a receptaculitid from the Kimmswick Limestone (Middle Ordovician) near Ozora, Missouri. I think I found it on a field trip with Frank Koucky in the distant mists of my student … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Peanut worms from the Silurian of Illinois

mwilson February 3, 2017 12:01 am

This week’s fossils are a set of cool sipunculan worms from the Lockport Shale Member of the Racine Formation (Wenlockian, Silurian) of Blue Island, Illinois (which, it turns out, is not an island.). This is Lecthaylus gregarius Weller, 1925. (There … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Ammonite septa from the Upper Cretaceous of South Dakota

mwilson January 27, 2017 12:01 am

This week we have an ammonite from the Pierre Shale (Upper Cretaceous, Campanian-Maastrichtian) of southwestern South Dakota. It was collected on a wonderful field expedition in June 2008 with my friend Paul Taylor (The Natural History Museum, London) and my … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Revisiting a pair of hyoliths from the Middle Ordovician of Estonia

mwilson January 20, 2017 12:01 am

We met these modest internal molds of the mysterious hyoliths about five years ago. With a dramatic new development in hyolith studies, they are worth seeing again. These fossils are internal molds (the sediment that filled the shell) of of … Continue reading →

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