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.

A day’s work in the Natural History Museum, London

LONDON, ENGLAND — This is one of my favorite places in the world. It is a Victorian cathedral of science: The Natural History Museum in London. Today I began three intense days of research with Paul Taylor in his paleontology … Continue reading
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Wooster Geologist in London at the British Museum

LONDON, ENGLAND — I arrived late last night in London after a series of delays in my departure from Poland, so I was pleased that today was a Sunday so I could chill a bit before work with Paul Taylor … Continue reading
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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A silicified rhynchonellid brachiopod from the Permian of West Texas

Sometimes fossils can be more useful when broken than whole. Above is a much-abused rhynchonellid brachiopod from the Road Canyon Formation (Middle Permian, Roadian, about 270 million years old) found in the Glass Mountains of southwestern Texas. It is part … Continue reading
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A Nazi hiding hole in Middle Triassic rocks (Będzin, Poland)

SOSNOWIEC, POLAND — On my last full day in Poland, Michał Zatoń and his family took me on a tour of the city they live in and where my hotel is located: Będzin. The history of this place is very long, … Continue reading
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Castles in Poland I expect, but a desert?

SOSNOWIEC, POLAND — Today my colleague Michał Zatoń took me and his family (wife Aneta and son Tomasz) on a tour of the Polish Jura, an upland with spectacular exposures of Jurassic rocks and the castles who love them. Above is … Continue reading
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The Gleiwitz Incident completes the grim prologue

(It is the nature of this blog that our most recent entries are at the top, making it a bit awkward to read what is here the third part of a trilogy of posts today. You might want to start … Continue reading
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Geology and nationalism at Góra Świętej Anny

Geology, of course, is so much our fundamental basis for being that we rarely think about it. Occasionally, though, particular geological circumstances play direct roles in history. Today as I was visiting Góra Świętej Anny with my geologist friends I … Continue reading
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The Triassic limestones at Góra Świętej Anny, Poland

SOSNOWIEC, POLAND — My friends Michał Zatoń and Tomasz Borszcz took me on a very pleasant day trip to Góra Świętej Anny in southwestern Poland about an hour’s drive northwest from Sosnowiec. This is a place of considerable geological and … Continue reading
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A new Polish colleague (and cool dinosaur model)

SOSNOWIEC, POLAND — The above full-scale model of Tyrannosaurus rex is one of my favorite dinosaur reconstructions. It sits in front of the Earth Sciences Building at the University of Silesia. Since it is outside the lighting is always dramatic, … Continue reading
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Research begins in southern Poland

SOSNOWIEC, POLAND — On this beautiful day I began research at the University of Silesia with Michał Zatoń and Tomasz Borszcz in this impressive building. (It is reportedly the tallest Earth Science building in the world, although the Chinese are on … Continue reading
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