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.

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A brittle star trace fossil from the Jurassic of Utah

mwilson February 13, 2011 1:24 am

This week we have a trace fossil that looks almost exactly like the animal that made it. A trace fossil is evidence of organism activity recorded in the rock record. The photograph above shows one of my favorite specimens: Asteriacites … Continue reading →

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

Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin! An Occasion to Celebrate the Teaching of Evolution

mwilson February 12, 2011 11:56 am

It is now a tradition among scientists to celebrate the birthday of the great English naturalist Charles Darwin.  He was born on February 12, 1809 — the very same day Abraham Lincoln entered the world.  (I have images of both … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A chewed-up leaf (Upper Cretaceous of Kansas)

mwilson February 6, 2011 1:17 am

This week’s fossil is a departure from our usual set of marine invertebrate animals. Above is a leaf of Viburnum lesquereuxii from the Dakota Formation of Ellsworth County, Kansas. The rocks enclosing it are from the Upper Cretaceous Cenomanian Stage, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Because ice is a mineral …

mwilson February 1, 2011 10:07 am

… we should record this morning’s ice storm in Wooster. You can read about the surprising properties of water ice as well on Wikipedia. This makes me long for hot desert days.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: The Multidisciplinary European Thorny Oyster (Pliocene of Cyprus)

mwilson January 30, 2011 1:56 am

In the summer of 1996, I was a co-director of  a Keck Geology Consortium project on the island of Cyprus. My students and I worked on the hot central plains far from the well known ophiolite complex in the cool … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

In praise of the humble Ro-Tap

mwilson January 25, 2011 3:58 pm

While we celebrate our new XRF and XRD equipment in Dr. Meagen Pollock’s petrology lab (which has already produced actual results), I thought we should also recognize our oldest piece of continuously-operated equipment in the department, the Ro-Tap Sieve Shaker: … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Dr. Stan Totten (’58) receives a Hall of Fame award from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources

mwilson January 25, 2011 12:51 pm

Wooster has always been proud of its distinguished alumnus Stan Totten (’58), a retired professor of geology at Hanover College. We are now pleased to see that the state of Ohio has recognized him for his many contributions to understanding … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A most unlikely clam — rudists from the Upper Cretaceous of the Oman Mountains

mwilson January 23, 2011 1:08 am

This week’s fossil was collected on a memorable trip in 2000 to the United Arab Emirates and Oman with my friend Paul Taylor, an invertebrate paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. We were there to study hard substrate … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A cystoid (Middle Ordovician of northeastern Estonia)

mwilson January 16, 2011 1:26 am

Fossils don’t get much more spherical than Echinosphaerites aurantium, an extinct creature common in the Early and Middle Ordovician of North America and Europe. These are cystoids, a somewhat informal category of filter-feeding, stalked echinoderms that are relatives of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A three-branched graptolite (Lower Ordovician of southeastern Australia)

mwilson January 9, 2011 2:22 am

This week I’m correcting a mistake I’ve been making in my paleontology courses for nearly thirty years. Our subject is a graptolite from the teaching collections — a specimen that has been at least cursorily examined by all of my … Continue reading →

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