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- A Tradition Continues: Richmond, Indiana – Paleoecology, Fall 2025
- Muscle scars in tiny conical fossils: A new paper describing the musculature of Devonian tentaculitids from Armenia and what they mean for the biology and evolution of the group
- Possible Linkages Between Climate and Human History in Ohio (the 4.2 yr. ka interval)
- A spotty Middle Ordovician trilobite from Estonia: A new paper describing an ancient parasitic infection
- A new paper on James Parkinson’s neglected 19th century contributions to crinoid paleontology
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Tag Archives: Fossil of the Week
Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Hyoliths (Middle Ordovician of Estonia)
The fossils above are about as simple as fossils can be. They are internal molds (sediment-fills) of conical shells that were made of the carbonate mineral aragonite. The aragonite shells dissolved away after death and burial, leaving the cemented sediment … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Oyster balls! (Middle Jurassic of Utah)
The technical term is ostreolith, but “oyster ball” is much more descriptive. These fossils are found by the thousands in the Carmel Formation (Middle Jurassic) in southwestern Utah. As far as I know, this is the only place they’ve ever … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Reef-forming brachiopods (Middle Permian of southwestern Texas)
In my early days of teaching paleontology I had an enthusiastic trading program with colleagues around the country. I would supply fine fossils from the Upper Ordovician of southern Ohio for what I considered exotic specimens from elsewhere. In one … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A little brachiopod gets a name (Middle Jurassic of southern Israel)
Moorellina negevensis Krawczyński & Wilson 2011; 1a – general view of the dorsal valve interior; 1b – oblique view showing brachial cavities and cardinalia. This week our fossil star is a new brachiopod species a Polish colleague (Cezary Krawczyński — … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A woolly mammoth tooth (Late Pleistocene of Holmes County, Ohio)
Since we had a mastodon tooth as our last Fossil of the Week, paleontological symmetry demands we have a mammoth tooth this week. The fossil above also comes from the productive bogs of Holmes County a few miles south of … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A mastodon tooth (Late Pleistocene of Holmes County, Ohio)
Time for a vertebrate fossil from the College of Wooster paleontology collections. Above is a side view of an American Mastodon tooth (Mammut americanum) from the Pleistocene of the county just south of us. It has been passed around through … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A sweet local scallop (Lower Carboniferous of Wooster)
The delicious scallop has a long, long history. Wooster’s variety, known as Aviculopecten subcardiformis, is about 345 million years old. The beauty above was found in the Logan Formation, a conglomeratic sandstone that underlies much of the city, including the … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A tiny sclerobiont community (Middle Jurassic of Poland)
This delightful little community is the subject of a current research project that developed from Independent Study fieldwork in 2006. Elyse Zavar (’07) and I traveled to southern Poland to work on Jurassic fossils associated with a carbonate hardground at … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: The ‘osses ‘ed clam (Upper Jurassic of southwestern England)
Katherine Nicholson Marenco (’03) and I did delightful fieldwork on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England, during the summer of 2002. We collected fossils from the famous Portland Limestone (Upper Jurassic) in a series of working quarries. Katherine completed … Continue reading
Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A honeycomb coral (Upper Ordovician of southern Indiana)
Polygons are common in nature, whether in two dimensions as desiccation cracks or in three dimensions as with columnar basalt. They result from “closely-packed” disks or tubes. The honeycomb coral (Favosites Lamarck 1816) is one of the best fossil examples … Continue reading