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.

An IS student gathering at the end of a busy school year

Mark Wilson May 3, 2023 5:12 pm

This afternoon Gloria and I hosted my Junior and Senior Independent Study students for a dessert reception in our home. We haven’t done this since 2019, and it is the first time we joined the juniors and seniors. It was … Continue reading →

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Wooster Junior Independent Study students shine with their project poster presentations

Mark Wilson April 20, 2023 7:56 am

The College of Wooster has a required Independent Study system for all students, and it is a marvelous program. Each student, usually in the spring semester of their junior year, signs up for the Junior Independent Study course. It is … Continue reading →

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Fossil of the Week: A thoroughly bored bivalve from Florida

Mark Wilson March 11, 2023 3:32 pm

The Fossil of the Week series is no longer weekly, and the gnarly specimen above is not actually a fossil, but the brand is so embedded in this blog that I’m still using it for occasional contributions. Like the specimen … Continue reading →

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Fossils of the Week: An encrusted and bored oyster from Florida

Mark Wilson March 4, 2023 12:14 pm

The Fossil of the Week series is no longer weekly, and the beautiful specimen above is not actually a fossil, but the brand is so embedded in this blog that I’m going to use it! My friend Al Curran, an … Continue reading →

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A new paper on the Middle Jurassic paleoecology of southern Israel

Mark Wilson February 20, 2023 3:35 pm

I am delighted to announce that a new paper has appeared in the journal Lethaia on Middle Jurassic paleoecology in southern Israel. The senior author is Yael Leshno Afriat, and it was part of her PhD dissertation at Hebrew University … Continue reading →

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Review paper on the fossil record of symbiotic organisms in bryozoans has just been published

Mark Wilson February 18, 2023 11:23 am

Olev Vinn, Andrej Ernst, and I have been working for years on various case studies of symbiotic endobionts (organisms that live within the skeletons of others) in the fossil record. This week our data-rich review paper has been published in … Continue reading →

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A new paper on symbiosis between brachiopods and bryozoans in the Late Ordovician of Estonia

Mark Wilson February 10, 2023 7:56 am

I’m pleased to announce another paper has appeared from our ongoing Estonian-German-American collaboration on symbiosis in the fossil record. The beautiful specimen above is the trepostome bryozoan Esthoniopora subsphaerica growing around a bioclaustration, forming a distinctive tube (Katian, Rakvere, northern … Continue reading →

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The delightful Fall 2022 Paleoecology class at Wooster

Mark Wilson December 13, 2022 2:20 pm

I was so impressed with the post by Professor Greg Wiles about his Fall 2022 Geomorphology class that I decided to highlight the Fall 2022 Paleoecology class as well. It was a great group of students, and we did an … Continue reading →

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Paleoecology field trip to the Upper Ordovician of eastern Indiana: Haven’t done this for awhile!

Mark Wilson September 4, 2022 10:58 pm

Richmond, Indiana — Today Nick Wiesenberg (our invaluable geological technician), Brianna Lyman (my excellent Teaching Assistant), and I took the 15 students in the Paleoecology course to the fossiliferous Upper Ordovician of eastern Indiana (upper Whitewater Formation). It’s a location … Continue reading →

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Who knew that crinoids could be boring? A possible bioeroding crinoid attachment structure from the early Silurian of Estonia (new paper)

Mark Wilson August 20, 2022 4:17 pm

Our hard-working and observant Estonian colleagues (Olev Vinn and Ursula Toom) recently made a remarkable discovery among Estonian early Silurian fossils: an attachment structure of a stalked crinoid that apparently bioeroded its way into a calcitic stromatoporoid skeleton. There’s a … Continue reading →

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