Tag Archives: Cambrian

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

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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Trilobites! Now it’s a field trip.

Just kidding about the trilobite requirement for a true field trip, but we must acknowledge a certain charm that comes only from these spiny little beasts. Thanks to my buddy Matthew James, we were directed to an especially fossiliferous set … Continue reading

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Anomalocaris now not so scary

DENVER, COLORADO — I very much enjoyed a talk this afternoon by Whitey Hagadorn (a Wooster favorite since his Osgood lecture last year) entitled: “Putting Anomalocaris on a soft-food diet?” Even though Whitey says Anomalocaris “may still have been a … Continue reading

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Geological and Archaeological Park at Timna

MITZPE RAMON, ISRAEL — Our last stop on our shabbat trip today was at Timna Park north of Eilat, Israel.  Here we saw a combination of geology and archaeology.  The porous sandstones exposed in the cliffs have been mineralized along … Continue reading

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Dr. Whitey Hagadorn presents “The First Animals on Land” for the 29th Annual Osgood Memorial Lecture at Wooster

WOOSTER, OHIO–This evening Dr. Whitey Hagadorn, an assistant professor of geology at Amherst College, gave the 29th Annual Richard G. Osgood Memorial Lecture to a large crowd of students, faculty and community members in Wishart Hall at The College of … Continue reading

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Wooster geologist at Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Canada

LAKE LOUISE, ALBERTA–On our free day the IPREP study group (this apparently means “International Paleontological Research Exchange Program”) drove to the spectacular Lake Louise in Banff National Park for a hike up the valley to the “Plain of Six Glaciers”. … Continue reading

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Middle Cambrian stromatolites high in the Canadian Rockies

FIELD, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA–Our study group was fortunate to meet Whitey Hagadorn (Amherst College and Denver Museum of Natural History) and Sally Walker (University of Georgia) for a hike to an exposure of stromatolites in the Pika Formation (Middle Cambrian) … Continue reading

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Mt. Stephen Trilobite Beds (Middle Cambrian)

FIELD, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA–After a very steep and long climb, our little field party visited another restricted quarry of famous Middle Cambrian fossils: the Mt. Stephens Trilobite Beds. Charles Walcott also collected from this site when he was working on … Continue reading

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The wondrous Burgess Shale

FIELD, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA–I stepped on Paleontological Holy Ground when I visited the Burgess Shale earlier this week. It is often cited as the most important fossil locality ever. I felt the historical as well as the scientific vibrations in … Continue reading

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The Walcott Quarry of the Burgess Shale on a beautiful day

FIELD, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA–We have a small group of seven people for this expedition organized by Matthew James of Sonoma State University in California. Everyone is from California except me (although I was invited through my California roots). Our guide … Continue reading

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