Tag Archives: Pliocene

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Another vermetid gastropod from the Pliocene of Cyprus

Why another one of those strange twisty gastropods from the Pliocene of Cyprus for our Fossil of the Week? Because this one fooled me for years. Above is a pair of images of a specimen of the vermetid gastropod Petaloconchus … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A worm-like gastropod from the Pliocene of Cyprus

This week we continue with fossils from the Nicosia Formation (Pliocene) of the Mesaoria Plain in central Cyprus. These fossils are from a Keck Geology Consortium project in 1996 with Steve Dornbos (’97). Above we have one of the most distinctive … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: An encrusted scallop from the Pliocene of Cyprus

One of the very best paleontological sites I had the pleasure of collecting was on the hot Mesaoria Plain near the center of the island of Cyprus. It was the summer of 1996 and Steve Dornbos (’97) and I were … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A colonial scleractinian coral from the Pliocene of Cyprus

This week’s fossil is another from the collection made in 1996 on a Keck Geology Consortium expedition to Cyprus with Steve Dornbos as a Wooster student. Steve and I found a spectacular undescribed coral reef in the Nicosia Formation (Pliocene) … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A carnivorous snail from the Pliocene of Cyprus

These drab and worn shells from the Pliocene of Cyprus are the remains of deadly little snails still around today. They are from an unknown species of the genus Euthria Gray, 1850. (Sometimes Euthria is considered a subgenus of Buccinulum.) … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A gastropod/coral/hermit crab combination from the Pliocene of Florida

These two shells show a lovely symbiosis between shallow marine hermit crabs and encrusting scleractinian corals. I was first introduced to the concept of “pagurized” shells by my friends Paul Taylor and Sally Walker. They showed me the many ways … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A delicate brachiopod from the Pliocene of Cyprus

These thin-shelled brachiopods were collected in the summer of 1996 on a Keck Geology Consortium project in Cyprus. Strangely enough, they were the first brachiopods I had ever seen in the Cenozoic. These are ventral valves of the terebratulid Maltaia … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A crab’s meal from the Pliocene of Cyprus

This week’s fossil was collected on a Keck Geology Consortium expedition to Cyprus in the summer of 1996. My Independent Study student on that adventure was Steve Dornbos (’97), now a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (and a … Continue reading

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Sediments, fossils and vistas at the Capo Milazzo Peninsula, Sicily

CATANIA, SICILY, ITALY–This was the last day of our International Bryozoology Association pre-conference field trip through Sicily. We had an excellent time and covered an extraordinary amount of territory on this large Mediterranean island. We started our final day on … Continue reading

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Return to the Pliocene at Altavilla Milicia, Sicily

Our last stop of the day on the IBA field trip was to a classic fossil locality on the north coast of Sicily about an hour east of Palermo. These are fine sandstones and marls preserving a diverse array of … Continue reading

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