Category Archives: Uncategorized

Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: A calcareous sponge with a crinoid holdfast (Matmor Formation, Middle Jurassic, Israel)

mwilson April 8, 2012 1:58 am

The Class Calcarea of the Phylum Porifera is a group of sponges characterized by spicular skeletons made of calcium carbonate (calcite in this case). The spicules (small elements of the skeleton) are often fused together, causing the sponges to look … Continue reading →

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Wooster Geologists: Communicating New Knowledge

mpollock April 7, 2012 9:51 pm

AMHERST, MA – Congratulations to Wooster Geology Seniors Katharine and Andrew for their excellent presentations at today’s Keck Symposium! Andrew presented the results of his remote sensing investigation of channels on Ascraeus Mons on Mars. Andrew compared his channels to those … Continue reading →

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Field Trip Friday

mpollock April 6, 2012 9:20 pm

AMHERST, MA – If you were following our adventures last summer, you’ll remember that Wooster helped lead a 6-student Keck trip to the West Fjords in northwest Iceland. You may not know that we also had a Wooster presence on … Continue reading →

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Collaborative (and sticky) Inquiry in the Geology of Natural Hazards

mpollock April 3, 2012 7:45 pm

Wooster, OH – Today’s hazards class was devoted to lava viscosity. Viscosity plays an important role in controlling how volcanoes behave, from determining how quickly magma ascends to whether the eruption will be explosive or effusive. In Hazards, we’ve been … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A spiriferinid brachiopod (Logan Formation, Lower Carboniferous, Ohio)

mwilson April 1, 2012 1:59 am

This brachiopod is one of the most common in the Logan Formation of Wooster, Ohio, so our students know it well from outcrops in Spangler Park and the occasional excavations in town. Four specimens of Syringothyris Winchell 1863 are visible … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Three cobble-dwelling oysters from the Upper Cretaceous of southern Israel

mwilson March 25, 2012 1:45 am

These fossils of the week, three well-worn cemented oysters, are highlighted to celebrate the final acceptance this past week of a manuscript that describes their geological setting and significance: Wilson et al., 2012 (see reference below). They are attached to … Continue reading →

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Glacial Features in Western Pennsylvania

mpollock March 22, 2012 7:15 pm

SLIPPERY ROCK, PA – I’ve just returned from the March meeting of the Pittsburgh Geological Society. If you’re in the region and you’re not a member, you really should think about joining. On the third Wednesday of each month, a … Continue reading →

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Wooster Geologists safely in the Tel Aviv airport

mwilson March 19, 2012 2:55 am

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL–Always a happy scene. After a long dark drive through the desert early this morning, and then the adventure of Tel Aviv traffic, Melissa and I are safely in Ben Gurion airport. We had a lot of questions … Continue reading →

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Last day of 2012 fieldwork in Israel by Wooster Geologists

mwilson March 18, 2012 3:07 pm

MITZPE RAMON–Today we finished our exploration of the Upper Cretaceous near Mitzpe Ramon, and then met some old friends for a different project near Ar’arat an-Naqab in the northernmost part of the Negev. This gave me the chance to take … Continue reading →

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Nabataean water management in the northern Negev (circa 2nd Century BCE)

mwilson March 18, 2012 2:47 pm

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL–We had an earlier post about water management techniques by Iron Age peoples in the northern Negev. Today during our last period of fieldwork on this trip we ran into a complex Nabataean system in a valley a … Continue reading →

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