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.

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

mwilson 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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

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

mwilson 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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The delightful Fall 2022 Paleoecology class at Wooster

mwilson 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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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

mwilson 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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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

mwilson 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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Lingulid brachiopod trace fossils from the Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation of southwestern Utah

mwilson July 7, 2022 12:48 am

This is a short trace fossil story with two disappointments, one much more than the other. It involves trace fossils made by lingulid brachiopods, a marine invertebrate group with a very long geological history. The earliest appeared in the Cambrian, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Reflecting on the Earth Sciences Department’s Community Climate Change (CCC) Project

mwilson June 25, 2022 9:13 am

Editor’s note: The following is by Caitlyn Denes (’23). “The Community Climate Change Project sought to document the changes in climate in Wooster, Ohio and surrounding communities. Through the collection, analysis, and interpretation of climatological data, we summarized our findings … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

New paper: Early Neoproterozoic stromatolites from south Liaoning Province, China

mwilson June 23, 2022 12:11 pm

I’m pleased to announce the online publication of a new paper from a Chinese-American geological team (Zhang et al., 2022). I’m the sole American! My role was minor, being mostly useful for literature review and writing. The senior author is … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Diatom Lake Adventure: Ice ages, hotel titrations, and the Midwest

mwilson June 14, 2022 8:35 am

Editor’s note: Rising Wooster senior Richard Torres (’23) had a spectacular opportunity this summer (May 31 – June 12, 2022) to participate in a National Science Foundation-funded research trip with Dr. Tom Lowell (on the right) and his team from … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Old dogs, old tricks: A very pleasant day of paleontology in the Lower Carboniferous of northeastern Ohio

mwilson June 8, 2022 5:36 pm

The weather was perfect today in verdant northeastern Ohio. Bill Ausich (retired paleontologist from The Ohio State University), Nigel Brush (retired geologist/archaeologist from Ashland University), and I (not retired!) have started a project examining the crinoids and associated fossils of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments