Tag Archives: fossils

Carbonate hardgrounds at Wooster

Mark Wilson September 25, 2024 1:34 pm

On the second floor of Wooster’s Scovel Hall, in a room behind the main teaching laboratory, are six cabinets completely full of labelled rocks and fossils (see below). There is even an additional set of specimens too large for the … Continue reading →

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A local geological field trip on a midsummer’s day: Return to the Lower Carboniferous of Lodi, Ohio

Mark Wilson July 12, 2024 10:28 pm

Wooster, Ohio– This afternoon three industrious summer research students and I took advantage of the brilliant weather to drive 30 minutes north of town to Lodi Community Park in Medina County, Ohio. We wanted to take a break from lab … Continue reading →

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James Parkinson, Paleontologist

Mark Wilson June 20, 2024 8:33 am

Ann Arbor, Michigan — This morning I gave a talk at the North American Paleontological Convention (NAPC) about the extensive contributions that the English physician James Parkinson (1755-1824) made to the rapidly growing field of paleontology in the early 19th … Continue reading →

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Twisty little encrusting tubeworms: A new paper describes two new Jurassic spirorbin species, pushing back the origin of the group and giving us a nice paleoecological evolution narrative.

Mark Wilson May 30, 2024 10:26 am

Several of my colleagues and I have been studying the fossil records of tubeworms for almost three decades now. We find them especially interesting because they are often beautifully preserved on hard substrates like shells, rocks and hardgrounds. They represent … 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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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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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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