Category Archives: Uncategorized

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a bifoliate bryozoan (Upper Ordovician of Indiana, USA)

mwilson August 12, 2012 1:35 am

The specimen above is a species within the trepostome bryozoan genus Peronopora Nicholson, 1881. I don’t know which species because that would require me to slice it open and examine its microscopic skeletal details. (A reason why trepostome bryozoans are … Continue reading →

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Grand Canyon Expedition 2012

gwiles August 9, 2012 6:58 pm

This summer (26 July through 2 August) I had the pleasure to serve as a guest geologist on a rafting trip to the Grand Canyon. The trip logistics were engineered by Doug Drushal under the auspices of Environmental Experiences, Inc. … Continue reading →

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Patchiness and ecological structure in a Middle Jurassic equatorial crinoid-brachiopod community (Matmor Formation, Callovian, southern Israel) — An abstract submitted to the Geological Society of America for the 2012 annual meeting

mwilson August 6, 2012 1:42 am

Editor’s note: The Wooster Geologists in Israel this spring wrote abstracts for the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, this November. The following is from student guest blogger Melissa Torma in the format required for GSA … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a beautiful phacopid trilobite (Middle Devonian of Ohio, USA)

mwilson August 5, 2012 1:57 am

Trilobites are always favorite fossils, especially big bug-eyed ones like Phacops rana (Green, 1832) shown above. It is, in fact, the state fossil of Pennsylvania after a petition from schoolchildren in 1988. This specimen is from the Middle Devonian of … Continue reading →

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A pleasant and productive geological walk in the woods

mwilson August 1, 2012 11:07 pm

WOOSTER, OHIO–One of the best parts of my job is answering questions from the public about rocks and fossils. Now that I’m Secretary of the Paleontological Society, I get queries every day about something or other. (And since my brief … Continue reading →

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Busy Wooster geology labs this summer

mwilson August 1, 2012 6:59 pm

WOOSTER, OHIO–This has been a particularly active summer in Scovel Hall, home of Wooster’s Geology Department. All our fieldwork eventually results in labwork, so our student geologists have been spending quality time with rocksaws, microscopes, computers and x-ray analytical equipment. … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: an encrusted plesiosaur vertebra (Jurassic of England)

mwilson July 29, 2012 1:18 am

The weathered bone pictured above sits on my desk as a treasured memento. It is the centrum of a plesiosaur vertebra. I found it in the Faringdon Sponge Gravels (Lower Cretaceous) of Oxfordshire, England, during my first research leave (1985). … Continue reading →

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Wooster Geologists in Indiana!

mwilson July 28, 2012 10:40 pm

WOOSTER, OHIO–I’ve seen a lot of fossils in my blessedly long time as a paleontologist, and I’ve had the opportunity to study them in many exotic places. I’m often reminded, though, that one of the best preserved and most diverse … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: A stromatoporoid-stromatolite combination (Upper Silurian of Saaremaa Island, Silurian)

mwilson July 22, 2012 1:51 am

There are two common fossil types that begin with “strom” and look roughly alike to the untrained eye. One is the stromatoporoid, which is a calcareous sponge, and the other is the stromatolite, which is a layered structure produced by … Continue reading →

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Analysis of a Rhuddanian (Llandovery, Lower Silurian) sclerobiont community in the Hilliste Formation on Hiiumaa Island, Estonia: a hard substrate-dwelling recovery fauna — An abstract submitted to the Geological Society of America for the 2012 annual meeting

mwilson July 19, 2012 1:42 pm

Editor’s note: The Wooster Geologists in Estonia this summer wrote abstracts for posters at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, this November. The following is from student guest blogger Jonah Novek in the format required … Continue reading →

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