Tag Archives: fossils

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: An encrusted and bored oyster from the Upper Jurassic of northern England

This week’s fossil is a celebration of classes beginning again at Wooster, and a memory of excellent summer fieldwork. It isn’t especially attractive, but it has paleontological significance. We are looking at a broken surface through a thick oyster from … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A blastoid from the Lower Carboniferous of Illinois

It is sometimes hard to believe that exquisite fossils such as the above are sometimes very common. The above is a theca of the blastoid Pentremites godoni (DeFrance, 1819) found in the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian) of Illinois. (Thanks to expert … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A very large Upper Jurassic ammonite from southern England

The shard above doesn’t look like much. It comes from a specimen far too large for us to excavate, let alone pack onto a plane for the trip home. Here’s a view of one of the full specimens still in … Continue reading

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Final day in the Silurian of New York

LOCKPORT, NEW YORK (August 9, 2015) — This was the last day in the field for Andrej Ernst and me. We met all our goals (collecting bryozoans from the Rochester Shale, finding sclerobionts anywhere, and learning more about New York … Continue reading

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Return to the Silurian of New York

LOCKPORT, NEW YORK (August 8, 2015) — Andrej and I began some deep collecting of Silurian localities in the Lockport area today in our survey of the bryozoan and sclerobiont faunas. The sites are, shall we say, not the most … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Small and common orthid brachiopods from the Upper Ordovician of Ohio

One of the many benefits of posting a “Fossil of the Week” is that I learn a lot while researching the highlighted specimens. I not only learn new things, I learn that some things I thought I knew must be, … Continue reading

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A day’s excursion into the Middle Devonian of western New York

LOCKPORT, NEW YORK (August 7, 2015) — Today Andrej Ernst and I were able to join Brian Bade and his friends on a collecting trip up Buffalo Creek in Erie County, New York. Our goal was simply to look for … Continue reading

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Into the Niagara Gorge

LOCKPORT, NEW YORK (August 6, 2015) — It holds one of the strongest river currents in the world, the gorge of the Niagara River below Niagara Falls. That tremendous flow has cut a deep canyon through the Silurian rocks of … Continue reading

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Wooster Geologist in New York

LOCKPORT, NEW YORK (August 5, 2015) — What looks like an ordinary commercial quarry above is actually quite unusual. It is an excavation done entirely by amateur paleontologists (“citizen scientists”) to collect and preserve fossils from the Rochester Shale (Upper … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A conulariid revisited (Lower Carboniferous of Indiana)

This summer I’ve been updating some of the photos I placed in the Wikipedia system (check them out here, if you like; free to use for any purpose). I was especially anxious to replace a low-resolution image I had made … Continue reading

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