Tag Archives: Ohio

Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Rugose corals from the Upper Ordovician of Ohio

mwilson December 22, 2013 1:50 am

College of Wooster student Willy Nelson spotted and collected up this beautiful Liberty Formation slab on our 2013 Invertebrate Paleontology course field trip to the Upper Ordovician of the Caesar Creek area in southern Ohio. There are many exquisite fossils … Continue reading →

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A paleontology field trip into the Upper Ordovician of Ohio

mwilson September 8, 2013 9:00 pm

The 2013 Invertebrate Paleontology class at Wooster had its first field trip today. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the usual boatload of fossils was collected. We traveled this year to Caesar Creek State Park and worked in the emergency … Continue reading →

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Sed/Strat goes local with its field trip: the Meadville Shale and the Logan Formation (Lower Carboniferous)

mwilson April 27, 2013 6:46 pm

WOOSTER, OHIO–The traditional spring field trip in the Sedimentology & Stratigraphy course at Wooster is taken several hours south, usually in Jackson County or, as last year, in a soggy quarry outside of Dayton. This time, though, we stayed nearby, … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A camerate crinoid from the Lower Carboniferous of north-central Ohio

mwilson April 7, 2013 1:57 am

Visitors often bring rocks and fossils to the Geology Department for identification. We love to solve the puzzles (or at least make the attempt), and our new friends appreciate names and ages for their treasures. (Usually. We’ve disappointed more than … 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 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 spiriferid brachiopod (Middle Devonian of northwestern Ohio)

mwilson October 14, 2012 1:39 am

I begin my Invertebrate Paleontology course by giving each student a common fossil to identify “by any means necessary”. This year I gave everyone a gray little brachiopod, one of which is shown above. They did pretty well. Kevin Silver … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Beautiful molds on a concretion (Lower Carboniferous of Ohio)

mwilson September 30, 2012 1:41 am

Kit Price (’13) was exploring a local creek on a Geomorphology course field trip north of Wooster led by Dr. Greg Wiles. Like the excellent paleontologist Kit is, her eyes continually searched the pebbles, cobbles, slabs and outcrops for that … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a beautiful phacopid trilobite (Middle Devonian of Ohio, USA)

mwilson August 5, 2012 1:57 am

Trilobites are always favorite fossils, especially big bug-eyed ones like Phacops rana (Green, 1832) shown above. It is, in fact, the state fossil of Pennsylvania after a petition from schoolchildren in 1988. This specimen is from the Middle Devonian of … Continue reading →

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A mastodon tusk (Late Pleistocene of Holmes County, Ohio)

mwilson June 24, 2012 1:00 am

This long and weathered tusk sits in a display case outside my office. It is from the American Mastodon (Mammut americanum) and was found many decades ago in Holmes County, just south of Wooster. A tooth found with it was … Continue reading →

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