Author Archives: Mark Wilson

About Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson is an emeritus Professor of Geology at The College of Wooster. He specializes in invertebrate paleontology, carbonate sedimentology, and stratigraphy. He also is an expert on pseudoscience, especially creationism.

Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A Middle Jurassic trace fossil from southwestern Utah

Mark Wilson April 17, 2015

Time for a trace fossil! This is one of my favorite ichnogenera (the trace fossil equivalent of a biological genus). It is Gyrochorte Heer, 1865, from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) Carmel Formation of southwestern Utah (near Gunlock; locality C/W-142). It … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A tectonically-deformed Early Cambrian trilobite from southeastern California

Mark Wilson April 10, 2015

This wonderful trilobite was found last month by Olivia Brown (’15), a student on the Wooster Geology Department’s glorious field trip to the Mojave Desert. Olivia collected it at Emigrant Pass in the Nopah Range of Inyo County, southeastern California. … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A disturbingly familiar coral from the Middle Jurassic of southern Israel

Mark Wilson April 3, 2015

Our fossil this week is one I don’t share with my Invertebrate Paleontology classes until they’re ready for it. Those of us who grew up with Paleozoic fossils think we recognize it right away. Surely this is a solitary rugose … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: An encrusted scleractinian coral from the Middle Jurassic of southern Israel

Mark Wilson March 27, 2015

This week’s fossil is in honor of Annette Hilton (’17), who is my Sophomore Research Assistant this year. She has been diligently working through a large and difficult collection of scleractinian corals from the Matmor Formation (Middle Jurassic, Callovian) of … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A bored and formerly encrusting trepostome bryozoan from the Upper Ordovician of Indiana

Mark Wilson March 20, 2015

The lump above looks like your average trepostome bryozoan from the Upper Ordovician. I collected it from the Whitewater Formation of the Cincinnatian Group at one of my favorite collecting sites near Richmond, Indiana. In this view you can just … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A new crinoid genus from the Silurian of Estonia

Mark Wilson March 13, 2015

It is my pleasure to introduce a new Silurian crinoid genus and species: Velocrinus coniculus Ausich, Wilson & Vinn, 2015. The image above is a CD-interray lateral view of the calyx (or head), with the small anal plate in the … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A lucinid bivalve from the Middle Jurassic of southern Israel

Mark Wilson March 5, 2015

Above is a specimen of the lucinid bivalve Fimbria sp. from the Matmor Formation (Middle Jurassic) of Makhtesh Gadol in southern Israel. I collected it in 2007 while working with Meredith Sharpe (Wooster ’08) as she pursued the fieldwork for … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Star-shaped crinoid columnals from the Middle Jurassic of southern Utah

Mark Wilson February 26, 2015

Just a quick Fossil of the Week post. If all has gone well, I’m somewhere in the Mojave Desert on a College of Wooster Spring Break geology field trip. Above we see isolated columnals (stem units) of the crinoid Isocrinus … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A molded brachiopod from the Lower Carboniferous of Ohio

Mark Wilson February 20, 2015

We haven’t had a local fossil featured on this blog for awhile. Above is an external mold of the spiriferid brachiopod Syringothyris typa Winchell, 1863, from the Logan Formation (Lower Carboniferous, Osagean, about 345 million years old) of southeastern Wooster, … Continue reading →
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: Sponge and bivalve borings from the Miocene of Spain

Mark Wilson February 13, 2015

This week we have a rather unimposing limestone cobble, at least from the outside. It was collected way back in 1989 by my student Genga Thavi (“Devi”) Nadaraju (’90) as part of a Keck Geology Consortium field project in southeastern … Continue reading →
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