Tag Archives: fossils

A delightful little field trip in Ohio with a Polish-American team

Mark Wilson October 23, 2023 10:21 am

Today was astonishingly beautiful in Ohio: bright blue skies and the peak of fall leaf colors. By happy circumstance, I had three Polish paleontologist friends visiting Wooster after the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh last week. Greg … Continue reading →

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The distinguished paleontologist Dr. Julia Clarke visits Wooster’s Earth Sciences department.

Mark Wilson October 13, 2023 11:54 am

The distinguished paleontologist Dr. Julia Clarke visited our Paleoecology lab in Wooster yesterday. She was there as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. She was wonderful with her several fascinating talks and many interactions with our students. Everybody is happy … Continue reading →

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Work continues on our Ordovician paleoecology project

Mark Wilson October 11, 2023 3:38 pm

The Fall 2023 Paleoecology class is continuing to work on its Upper Ordovician fossil collections from our field trip at the beginning of the semester. Part of the class is shown above sorting their specimens and identifying them as precisely … Continue reading →

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A lovely day to visit the Ordovician seas of Indiana

Mark Wilson August 20, 2023 8:06 pm

This year’s Paleoecology class field trip was to a familiar place: a roadcut outside Richmond, Indiana, exposing the Whitewater Formation in the gorgeous Upper Ordovician System. We call it the catchy name “C/W-148” (N 39.78722°, W 84.90166°). It was a … Continue reading →

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Another new paper: A nestling brachiopod in an Ordovician boring and its implications

Mark Wilson June 8, 2023 9:54 am

I know, I know, several new papers lately. This spike in publications is a function of two things: The pandemic with its enforced isolation meant my colleagues and I had more time to finish manuscripts, and I belong to some … Continue reading →

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The Ordovician Bioclaustration Revolution: A new paper

Mark Wilson June 6, 2023 8:08 am

Bioclaustration is the process by which an organism is embedded within the growing skeleton of another. Bioclaustrations are fascinating in the fossil record because they give direct information about how two or more organisms lived together in the ancient past … Continue reading →

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A new paper on brachiopod symbiosis in the Early Paleozoic

Mark Wilson May 20, 2023 1:19 pm

My Estonian colleague and friend Olev Vinn and I have been working for many years on examples of parasitism recorded in the fossil record. For the last couple of years we have been summarizing the data and assessing paleoecological and … Continue reading →

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A new paper on crinoids from the Wooster Shale (Lower Carboniferous, Tournaisian) of northeastern Ohio

Mark Wilson May 4, 2023 8:54 am

My wonderful Ohio State colleague Bill Ausich and I have a new paper in the Journal of Paleontology. It just appeared this morning online. It is Open Access, but let me know if you want a pdf and can’t get … Continue reading →

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Fossil of the Week: A thoroughly bored bivalve from Florida

Mark Wilson March 11, 2023 3:32 pm

The Fossil of the Week series is no longer weekly, and the gnarly specimen above is not actually a fossil, but the brand is so embedded in this blog that I’m still using it for occasional contributions. Like the specimen … Continue reading →

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Fossils of the Week: An encrusted and bored oyster from Florida

Mark Wilson March 4, 2023 12:14 pm

The Fossil of the Week series is no longer weekly, and the beautiful specimen above is not actually a fossil, but the brand is so embedded in this blog that I’m going to use it! My friend Al Curran, an … Continue reading →

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