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: an aberrant brachiopod (Permian of Texas)

Mark Wilson October 9, 2011 1:43 am

Funny word to apply to a fossil: aberrant, meaning “deviating from the normal”. It’s an old-fashioned word rarely used these days, primarily because we have a hard time defining “normal”. It was the word used when I was introduced to … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: an oreodont (probably from the Oligocene of Nebraska)

Mark Wilson October 2, 2011 1:36 am

Oreodonts are extraordinarily common fossils in the Oligocene of North America. Just about every teaching fossil collection contains at least a couple oreodont skulls, most obtained during late Nineteenth-Century field trips to the Great Plains. Our specimen above is of … Continue reading →

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You’re never too young to be a geologist: Nursery School students visit Scovel Hall

Mark Wilson September 30, 2011 2:05 pm

WOOSTER, OHIO–The Wooster Geologists have long had a special relationship with The College of Wooster Nursery School (where young children “actively construct their own knowledge of the world”). Every year our faculty and students talk to the children about rocks, … Continue reading →

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A Midday Biology & Geology Field Trip

Mark Wilson September 28, 2011 4:24 pm

WOOSTER, OHIO–Our colleague Rick Lehtinen in the Department of Biology had a great idea: how about a casual noon trip to the local Spangler Park to enjoy the plants, animals, rocks and streams? So Greg Wiles and I took him … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a venerid bivalve (Upper Cretaceous of Jordan)

Mark Wilson September 25, 2011 1:39 am

This summer I joined a team describing a shell bed in the Upper Cretaceous (lower Campanian, about 80 million years old) Wadi Umm Ghudran Formation exposed northeast of Amman, Jordan (at N 32° 09.241′, E 36° 12.960′, to be exact). … Continue reading →

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Fossils in the Wild: Invertebrate Paleontology Field Trip

Mark Wilson September 11, 2011 11:06 pm

CAESAR CREEK LAKE, OHIO–The 2011 Invertebrate Paleontology class had a productive field trip on a beautiful Ohio day. Thunderstorms roamed the state, but we saw them only when we were comfortably on the bus. We worked in the emergency spillway … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A tabulate coral (Middle Devonian of New York)

Mark Wilson September 4, 2011 1:43 am

This week’s specimen is from a group of fossils I gave my Invertebrate Paleontology students as “unknowns” to identify. Since it is their very first week of class I expected them to struggle, but many did remarkably well. (Congratulations to … Continue reading →

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Wooster Geologists begin the 2011-2012 school year

Mark Wilson September 1, 2011 2:52 pm

WOOSTER, OHIO–The cheerful group above is the Wooster Geology Club in our traditional start of the year group photograph. (The image was kindly taken by Danielle Reeder.) We are fewer than usual because an unprecedented number of our geology majors … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A trilobite hypostome (Upper Ordovician of southern Ohio)

Mark Wilson August 21, 2011 1:44 am

We had a familiar trilobite last week, so this week we’ll look at a poorly-known part of a trilobite: the hypostome. Above is an incomplete forked, conterminant hypostome of the large trilobite Isotelus. (Isotelus, by the way, is the state … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A trilobite (Middle Cambrian of Utah)

Mark Wilson August 14, 2011 1:32 am

I’ve avoided having a trilobite as Fossil of the Week because it seems like such a cliché. Everyone knows trilobites, and they are the most common “favorite fossil” (invertebrate, anyway). Plus our best trilobite (seen above) is the most familiar … Continue reading →

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