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 Geologists return to southwestern Utah

Mark Wilson May 21, 2022 5:21 am

Washington, Utah — In March 2020 a team of Wooster Geologists was in beautiful southwestern Utah sampling, measuring and analyzing rocks and fossils from the Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation north of St. George. The Covid-19 pandemic forced us to end … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Encrusted strophomenid brachiopods from the Upper Ordovician of northern Kentucky (and the old concave-up or concave-down controversy)

Mark Wilson April 24, 2022 12:05 pm

After the delightful Joint North-Central and Southeastern Section Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Cincinnati this month, some of the Wooster Geologists visited a fossiliferous exposure of the Bellevue Formation (Upper Ordovician, Katian) along the Bullitsville Road in … Continue reading →

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Wooster geologists at the Joint North-Central and Southeastern Section Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Cincinnati

Mark Wilson April 9, 2022 1:25 pm

Cincinnati, Ohio —  This week Professor Wiles, Nick Wiesenberg and I attended the 2022 Joint North-Central and Southeastern meeting of the Geological Society of America in Cincinnati, about a three-hour drive south of Wooster. It was quite satisfying to attend … Continue reading →

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Unearthing the effects of European-American settlement on a northeast Ohio kettle lake through diatom stratigraphy — The Independent Study project of Justine Paul A. Berina (’22)

Mark Wilson March 24, 2022 7:20 am

Editor’s Note: Independent Study (IS) at The College of Wooster is a three-course series required of every student before graduation. Earth Sciences students typically begin in the second semester of their junior years with project identification, literature review, and a … Continue reading →

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Model of a Biotic Hard Substrate Community: Paleoecology of Large Trepostome Bryozoans from the Upper Ordovician (Katian) of the Cincinnati Region, USA — The Independent Study project of Kate Runciman (’22)

Mark Wilson February 28, 2022 7:59 pm

Editor’s Note: Independent Study (IS) at The College of Wooster is a three-course series required of every student before graduation. Earth Sciences students typically begin in the second semester of their junior years with project identification, literature review, and a … Continue reading →

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Wooster Geologists begin a new semester

Mark Wilson January 28, 2022 9:20 am

We all hope this is our last pandemic semester. The College of Wooster began all its courses remotely for the first week of the semester, a format we are all very familiar with by now. In the second week we … Continue reading →

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A new book chapter for a new year: Evolutionary history of colonial organisms as hosts and parasites

Mark Wilson January 1, 2022 2:02 pm

My Estonian colleague and friend Olev Vinn and I have a chapter in the new book The Evolution and Fossil Record of Parasitism. Ours is chapter four on the evolutionary history of colonial organisms as hosts and parasites. One of … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Department of Earth Sciences 2020-2021 Annual Report!

Mark Wilson December 3, 2021 2:58 pm

Our Administrative Coordinator Patrice Reeder has assembled another magnificent annual report for our department. Once again the Covid Pandemic made this task all the more complex. The cover shows one of our remote courses during the eventful year. We’re back … Continue reading →

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On encountering a nest of fraudulent geology papers

Mark Wilson November 15, 2021 12:46 pm

This is a different kind of post! This semester I stumbled into an enormous collection of phony research papers published in the Arabian Journal of Geosciences. I became fascinated with the brazen nature of this fraud, and its large scale. … Continue reading →

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New paper: Introducing the taphonomic process of ooimmuration

Mark Wilson November 1, 2021 12:10 am

I’m pleased to announce the publication of an article describing how fossils can be preserved within carbonate ooids, and what the implications are for this new aspect of taphonomy (the study of fossil preservation) we call ooimmuration. The team of … Continue reading →

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