Author Archives: Mark Wilson

CATANIA, SICILY, ITALY–They may look like impressive sea stacks to you, but it turns out these are three huge stones thrown by the aggrieved and wounded cyclops Polyphemus at Odysseus as he escaped that infernal cave. Who knew? This morning … Continue reading →
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CATANIA, SICILY, ITALY–These are Dr. Meagen Pollock’s favorite kind of rocks: pillow basalts. Above we have a spectacular example of pillow basalts exposed in cross section below a castle ruin in Aci Castello a few kilometers north of Catania. The … Continue reading →
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CATANIA, SICILY, ITALY–The International Bryozoology Association conference field trip began with a day on the magnificent compound basaltic stratovolcano that virtually defines the eastern half of Sicily: Mount Etna. We did not get to climb all the way to the … Continue reading →
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CATANIA, SICILY, ITALY–This summer Wooster’s Team Italy consists of only me. Maybe in the future I’ll take students here for Independent Study projects depending on what I find. I’ve just arrived in the city of Catania on the eastern coast … Continue reading →
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The beautiful fossil shrimp above is Aeger tipularis (Schlotheim, 1822), and it comes from one of the most famous rock units: the Solnhofen Plattenkalk (Tithonian, Upper Jurassic) of Germany. (The Solnhofen is well known for its extraordinary fossils, including the … Continue reading →
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SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH–On the last full day of our Utah trip, we toured the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City. It is in a spectacular place against the red rocks of the Wasatch Mountains and looking … Continue reading →
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LOGAN, UTAH–Today we explored the area around Promontory, in northern Utah. Among the many beautiful sites were these rocky, faceted hills that several thousand years ago. This particular hill was intriguing although inaccessible. (It is on a vast tract of … Continue reading →
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LOGAN, UTAH–Today we hiked up part of Logan Canyon along the south side of the Logan River. Towering above us on either side were massive limestone cliffs, as shown above. The thickest unit is the Lodgepole Limestone Formation (Lower Carboniferous, … Continue reading →
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This week we highlight another gift to the Wooster Geology Department from George Chambers (’79). Among the many fossils that arrived in three delightful boxes were these shark teeth. They are from the extinct Mackerel Shark Otodus obliquus Agassiz, 1843. … Continue reading →
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SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH–It may be a vacation, but even so, every geologist has the delightful duty of enjoying the local geological setting. The above image is looking south from the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City along … Continue reading →
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