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.

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Encrusting tubes from the Devonian of Michigan

Mark Wilson February 17, 2013 1:52 am

The scanning electron microscope (SEM) image above shows the tubes of the encrusting group known as hederelloids. They are among my favorite fossils. I was reminded of them recently while reading this advertisement for a novel in which, to my … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Sea urchin bites from the Upper Cretaceous of southern Israel

Mark Wilson February 10, 2013 1:16 am

What you see above is a bit of oyster shell with some curious small gouges in it. The oyster is Ilymatogyra (Afrogyra) africana (Lamarck, 1801) from the En Yorqe’am Formation (Cenomanian) exposed in Hamakhtesh Hagadol, southern Israel. The deep scratches … Continue reading →

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Women scientists at Wooster, featuring Wooster Geologist Shelley Judge

Mark Wilson February 7, 2013 11:22 am

Dr. Shelley Judge begins this excellent short video about women in science at Wooster: (You have to click the link I made in the text above. Embedding a video in a blog post is beyond my skills!) We’re proud of … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A very thin coral from the Upper Ordovician of Indiana

Mark Wilson February 3, 2013 1:50 am

What we have above is a heliolitid coral known as Protaraea richmondensis Foerste, 1909. It has completely encrusted a gastropod shell with its thin corallum. Stephanie Jarvis, a Wooster student at the time and now a graduate student at Southern … Continue reading →

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Stratigraphy and paleoenvironments of the Soeginina Beds (Paadla Formation, Lower Ludlow, Upper Silurian) on Saaremaa Island, Estonia (Senior Independent Study Thesis by Richa Ekka)

Mark Wilson January 28, 2013 3:37 pm

Editor’s note: Senior Independent Study (I.S.) is a year-long program at The College of Wooster in which each student completes a research project and thesis with a faculty mentor.  We particularly enjoy I.S. in the Geology Department because there are … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A twisty trace fossil (Lower Carboniferous of northern Kentucky)

Mark Wilson January 27, 2013 1:58 am

My Invertebrate Paleontology students know this as Specimen #8 in the trace fossil exercises section: “the big swirly thing”. It is a representative of the ichnogenus Zoophycos Massalongo, 1855. This trace is well known to paleontologists and sedimentologists alike — … Continue reading →

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Contemporary melting of northwestern glaciers: A new paper by Wooster Geologists … and the ultimate finish of an Independent Study adventure

Mark Wilson January 25, 2013 10:30 pm

Wooster geology graduate Nathan Malcomb, now a scientist with the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service, has just published an important paper with his advisor Greg Wiles in the journal Quaternary Research (affectionately known as “QR”). This … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Pseudofossil of the Week: Manganese dendrites from Germany

Mark Wilson January 20, 2013 1:33 am

We haven’t had a pseudofossil in this space for awhile. A pseudofossil is an object that is often mistaken for a fossil but is actually inorganic. The above may look like  fossil fern, but it is instead a set of … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A glass sponge from the Upper Ordovician of southern Ohio

Mark Wilson January 13, 2013 1:47 am

Like all those who teach, I learn plenty from my students, sometimes with a simple question. Richa Ekka (’13) asked me last semester during a paleontology lab if the above specimen was really a trace fossil as I had labeled … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A conulariid from the Upper Ordovician of Indiana

Mark Wilson January 6, 2013 1:03 am

This week’s fossil is not technically impressive: it is a rather modestly preserved conulariid from the Waynesville Formation of southern Indiana (location C/W-111). It is notable because it is one of the very few conulariids I’ve found in the Ordovician, … Continue reading →

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