Tag Archives: Fossil of the Week

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A pretty little fish from the Eocene of Wyoming

Mark Wilson March 31, 2013 1:10 am

Most people have seen this fossil fish type. Geologists, in fact, have probably seen Knightia eocaena Jordan, 1907, thousands of times. It is present in nearly every gift shop that sells fossils, usually as small plaques or glued to refrigerator … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A grazed oyster from the Middle Jurassic of Gloucestershire, England

Mark Wilson March 24, 2013 1:46 am

This small oyster is not in itself unusual. In fact, it is one of the most common fossils in the Jurassic of western Europe: Praeexogyra acuminata (Sowerby, 1816). It may be better known by its older name: Ostrea acuminata. Local … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Cast of a lower jawbone of the largest ape ever (Pleistocene, southern China)

Mark Wilson March 17, 2013 1:42 am

The above is one of my favorite “fossils”, a commercially-available cast of the lower jawbone of Gigantopithecus blacki, a giant extinct ape. It was produced from an actual Pleistocene fossil found in a cave near Liucheng, Guangxi, in southern China. … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A brittle star from the Upper Jurassic of Germany

Mark Wilson March 10, 2013 1:38 am

Wooster geologists have again greatly benefited from the donation of a collection by an alumnus. George Chambers (’79), a successful professional photographer, sent us several boxes of minerals, rocks and fossils he had acquired in his lifelong passion for geology. … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: More bryozoan etchings and an African slug surprise

Mark Wilson March 3, 2013 1:45 am

This is the inside of a modern cockle shell (Dinocardium vanhyningi) found on a beach in Wilmington, North Carolina. Across the surface is a radiating series of pits, each of which was formed under a zooid of an encrusting cheilostome … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A bryozoan etching (Upper Ordovician of Indiana)

Mark Wilson February 24, 2013 1:27 am

Another trace fossil of a sort this week. Above you see the dorsal valve exterior of a strophomenid brachiopod from the Upper Ordovician of southeastern Indiana. Across the surface is a network of grooves looking a bit like a spider … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Encrusting tubes from the Devonian of Michigan

Mark Wilson February 17, 2013 1:52 am

The scanning electron microscope (SEM) image above shows the tubes of the encrusting group known as hederelloids. They are among my favorite fossils. I was reminded of them recently while reading this advertisement for a novel in which, to my … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Sea urchin bites from the Upper Cretaceous of southern Israel

Mark Wilson February 10, 2013 1:16 am

What you see above is a bit of oyster shell with some curious small gouges in it. The oyster is Ilymatogyra (Afrogyra) africana (Lamarck, 1801) from the En Yorqe’am Formation (Cenomanian) exposed in Hamakhtesh Hagadol, southern Israel. The deep scratches … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A very thin coral from the Upper Ordovician of Indiana

Mark Wilson February 3, 2013 1:50 am

What we have above is a heliolitid coral known as Protaraea richmondensis Foerste, 1909. It has completely encrusted a gastropod shell with its thin corallum. Stephanie Jarvis, a Wooster student at the time and now a graduate student at Southern … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A twisty trace fossil (Lower Carboniferous of northern Kentucky)

Mark Wilson January 27, 2013 1:58 am

My Invertebrate Paleontology students know this as Specimen #8 in the trace fossil exercises section: “the big swirly thing”. It is a representative of the ichnogenus Zoophycos Massalongo, 1855. This trace is well known to paleontologists and sedimentologists alike — … Continue reading →

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