Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Coevolution of Humankind and Lake Erie: Past, Present, and Future Interactions – The Independent Study project of Natalie Tanner (’24)

Mark Wilson May 19, 2024 2:13 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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The Geoheritage of the Sõrve Peninsula, Saaremaa Island, Estonia: A Silurian Marine Paradise

Mark Wilson May 18, 2024 4:38 pm

A geoheritage site is a location where the geological features are worth preserving for scientific and cultural reasons. It is a relatively new term dating back to the 1990s. The purpose of designating a geoheritage site is to mark it … Continue reading →

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My last class at Wooster: Sedimentology & Stratigraphy in the Spring Semester of 2024

Mark Wilson May 18, 2024 3:02 pm

The delightful students above are shown on the last day of the Spring 2024 semester edition of the Sedimentology & Stratigraphy course. I’m retiring from the College of Wooster in August of 2024, so they are my final students. Thank … Continue reading →

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The encrusters who went missing: A new paper on the taphonomy of bryozoans that encrusted brachiopods in the Late Ordovician of the Cincinnati region, USA

Mark Wilson May 13, 2024 8:51 am

I’ve spent much of my career investigating marine sclerobionts through time. A sclerobiont is an organism that lives on or within a hard substrate. Among marine sclerobionts are oysters that encrust cephalopod shells, barnacles attached to boat hulls, and clams … Continue reading →

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Geochemistry Adventure in a Flooded Killbuck Marsh

Rebecca Matecha April 4, 2024 12:30 pm

On Wednesday Dr. Matecha’s Geochemistry class took a trip out to Killbuck Marsh to collect water samples for a research project. This week saw Ohio and Wooster especially inundated with heavy rain, which led to some very interesting conditions for … Continue reading →

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An ancient name remembered

Mark Wilson March 1, 2024 9:39 am

In the summer of 2018 I traveled to Wales for a conference in Cardiff. Immediately afterwards I visited my dear fiends Caroline and Tim Palmer in Aberystwyth, and they gave me a tour of Welsh sites they found particularly interesting. … Continue reading →

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Meet two new Ordovician fossil species from Estonia — a cover story

Mark Wilson January 28, 2024 10:07 am

The conical fossil above on the cover of the latest issue of Palaeoworld is the paratype of Conchicolites parcecostatis, a new Ordovician (Katian) cornulitid species from the Korgesaare Formation, Sutlema quarry, Estonia. It is tiny, only about two millimeters long. … Continue reading →

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Two new Upper Ordovician bryozoan papers appeared this week

Mark Wilson December 14, 2023 11:33 am

Readers of this blog will remember Kate Runciman, a 2022 graduate of The College of Wooster and now a graduate student at the University of Cambridge. Her Independent Study thesis (after peer review and revisions) has now been published in … Continue reading →

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Paleoecology class at Wooster finishes the semester in great style

Mark Wilson November 30, 2023 4:42 pm

I was very fortunate this semester to have such a fine class of paleoecologists. This course broadly covers the Earth’s ecological history, so it consists of principles, theories and processes illuminated with case studies, all strung along the thread of … Continue reading →

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An Exciting Trip to Tour Unconventional Oil and Gas Wells

Rebecca Matecha November 10, 2023 4:30 pm

This semester’s Geology of Energy Resources course, which focuses on how fossil fuels form, are extracted, and are used, had the opportunity to visit two unconventional oil and gas wells run by Ascent Resources located in southeastern Ohio this week. … Continue reading →

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