Tag Archives: Ordovician

Team Minnesota visits the Upper Ordovician of Iowa

Rochester, Minnesota — Team Minnesota traveled south today to visit exposures of our three favorite formations: the Platteville Limestone, Decorah Shale, and Cummingsville Limestone. Where best to see the Decorah Shale than in Decorah, Iowa? Above the crew is scattered … Continue reading

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Team Minnesota Assembles!

Rochester, Minnesota — The first Team Minnesota of Wooster Geologists has now gathered for its work in this beautiful state. Above from the left is Rachel Wetzel (’17), Dean Thomas (’17), Nick Wiesenberg (Geological Technician), Nikki Bell (’17) and Etienne … Continue reading

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A day at the Natural History Museum in London

London, England — My first full day at The Natural History Museum in London was interesting and inspiring as always, but it did have its tedium. This drawer of Ordovician brachiopods, for example. I scanned each with my handlens in … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: A bored Ordovician hardground from Ohio, and an introduction to a new paper on trace fossils and evolution

Above is an image of a carbonate hardground (cemented seafloor) from the Upper Ordovician of Adams County, Ohio. It comes from the Bull Fork Formation and was recovered along State Route 136 north of Manchester, Ohio (Locality C/W-20). It is … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A thoroughly encrusted rugose coral from the Upper Ordovician of southeastern Indiana

It doesn’t look like much, this long lump of gray stone. With a close view you might pick up a hint of a bryozoan or two, but mostly we see rather shabby shades of grey. One of the coolest perks … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: An encrusted and bored coral (maybe) from the Upper Ordovician of southeastern Indiana (Part II)

Last week we looked at a dull gray rock found in a roadcut in southeastern Indiana near the town of Liberty. It is from the Saluda Formation (Upper Ordovician), a thin unit that was likely deposited in very shallow, lagoonal … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: An encrusted and bored coral (maybe) from the Upper Ordovician of southeastern Indiana (Part I)

I found this lump of a gray rock in southeastern Indiana along a highway near the town of Liberty. It is from the Saluda Formation (Upper Ordovician), a thin unit that was likely deposited in very shallow, lagoonal waters along … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Pseudofossils of the Week: Shatter cones from southern Ohio

This brief post is a correction of a previous entry. Last year I showed what I thought were shatter cones collected many years ago in Adams County, Ohio, by the late Professor Frank L. Koucky of The College of Wooster. … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A bitten brachiopod (Upper Ordovician of southeastern Indiana)

This brachiopod, identified as Glyptorthis insculpta (Hall, 1847), was shared with me by its collector, Diane from New York State. She found it in a muddy horizon of the Bull Fork Formation (Upper Ordovician) in southeastern Indiana. She immediately noted … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A brachiopod with a heavy burden (Upper Ordovician of southeastern Indiana)

Yes, the above image doesn’t look much like a brachiopod, but just wait. We see a trepostome bryozoan with extended knobs and a few borings. Flip it over, though … … and we see that the bryozoan almost entirely covers … Continue reading

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