Tag Archives: fossils

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

mwilson 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

mwilson 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

mwilson 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)

mwilson 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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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A glass sponge from the Upper Ordovician of southern Ohio

mwilson January 13, 2013 1:47 am

Like all those who teach, I learn plenty from my students, sometimes with a simple question. Richa Ekka (’13) asked me last semester during a paleontology lab if the above specimen was really a trace fossil as I had labeled … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A conulariid from the Upper Ordovician of Indiana

mwilson January 6, 2013 1:03 am

This week’s fossil is not technically impressive: it is a rather modestly preserved conulariid from the Waynesville Formation of southern Indiana (location C/W-111). It is notable because it is one of the very few conulariids I’ve found in the Ordovician, … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Episkeletozoans from the Middle Jurassic of Israel

mwilson December 30, 2012 1:55 am

Last week I had a delightful research afternoon with my former student Lisa Park Boush, now a professor in the Department of Geology and Environmental Science at The University of Akron, and currently Program Director, National Science Foundation, Sedimentary Geology … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A swimming clam from the Pliocene of Cyprus

mwilson December 23, 2012 1:20 am

In the summer of 1996, I was a co-director of a Keck Geology Consortium project in Cyprus. One of my students was Steve Dornbos (’97), now a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. We had a great time exploring the Nicosia … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A bivalve boring from the Upper Ordovician of southern Ohio

mwilson December 16, 2012 1:35 am

This week’s fossil is from close to home. In fact, it sit in my office. The above is a trace fossil named Petroxestes pera. It was produced on a carbonate hardground by a mytilacean bivalve known as Modiolopsis (shown below). … Continue reading →

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

mwilson December 9, 2012 1:34 am

This week’s fossil is a very common one from the Whitewater Formation (Richmondian, Upper Ordovician) exposed near Richmond, Indiana. It was collected, along with hundreds of other specimens, during one of many Invertebrate Paleontology field trips to an outcrop along … Continue reading →

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