Author Archives: Mark Wilson

About Mark Wilson

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.

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

Mark Wilson October 18, 2023 10:45 pm

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.

Mark Wilson October 13, 2023 11:54 am

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

Mark Wilson October 11, 2023 3:38 pm

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

Mark Wilson October 1, 2023 7:29 pm

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

Mark Wilson September 30, 2023 8:24 pm

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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A lovely day to visit the Ordovician seas of Indiana

Mark Wilson August 20, 2023 8:06 pm

This year’s Paleoecology class field trip was to a familiar place: a roadcut outside Richmond, Indiana, exposing the Whitewater Formation in the gorgeous Upper Ordovician System. We call it the catchy name “C/W-148” (N 39.78722°, W 84.90166°). It was a … Continue reading →

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Aquatic siliceous microbiota team excelling with summer research at The College of Wooster

Mark Wilson July 6, 2023 1:23 pm

I am honored to be working with a great research team this summer in Scovel Hall at The College of Wooster. Our topic has been the analysis of the siliceous sponges and diatoms in a sediment core from Brown’s Lake … Continue reading →

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Another new paper: A nestling brachiopod in an Ordovician boring and its implications

Mark Wilson June 8, 2023 9:54 am

I know, I know, several new papers lately. This spike in publications is a function of two things: The pandemic with its enforced isolation meant my colleagues and I had more time to finish manuscripts, and I belong to some … Continue reading →

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The Ordovician Bioclaustration Revolution: A new paper

Mark Wilson June 6, 2023 8:08 am

Bioclaustration is the process by which an organism is embedded within the growing skeleton of another. Bioclaustrations are fascinating in the fossil record because they give direct information about how two or more organisms lived together in the ancient past … Continue reading →

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A new paper on brachiopod symbiosis in the Early Paleozoic

Mark Wilson May 20, 2023 1:19 pm

My Estonian colleague and friend Olev Vinn and I have been working for many years on examples of parasitism recorded in the fossil record. For the last couple of years we have been summarizing the data and assessing paleoecological and … Continue reading →

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