Author Archives: Mark Wilson

About Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson is a 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 Fossils of the Week: Giant Pliocene scallop from Virginia with bonus sclerobionts

Yes, the feature “Wooster’s Fossil of the Week” was retired long ago (all entries still available on this blog), but occasionally I will still cover interesting fossils we come across in the lab or field. The title is now a … Co… Continue reading

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Milestones for two Wooster Geologists

There was some good news for the College of Wooster Earth Sciences faculty during the otherwise dreary Pandemic Year. The two cheerful Wooster geologists pictured above in the field (today!) reached important points in their professional lives. Dr. Mea… Continue reading

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Microbial Structures of the Middle Jurassic (Bajocian) Carmel Formation, Southwest Utah: William Santella’s Senior Independent Study thesis

Editor’s Note: Independent Study (IS) at The College of Wooster is a three-course series required of every student before graduation. Earth Sciences students typically begin in the second semester of their junior years with project identification, lite… Continue reading

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Wooster Geologists featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Senior Independent Study process for Morgan Pedroso Curry (’21) and his creative, enthusiastic advisor Dr. Shelley Judge is the subject of an excellent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education this week. (The article may be behind a pay &… Continue reading

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A new “living fossil” bryozoan with a Wooster connection

Way back in the summer of 2008, my good friend Paul Taylor (the Natural History Museum, London), John Sime (Senior Independent Study student at the time) and I explored the Pierre Shale (Upper Cretaceous) of the Black Hills region in … Continue r… Continue reading

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New paper on predatory drill holes in Cambrian/Ordovician brachiopods (northern Estonia and northwest Russia)

Once again I’m proud to be on Olev Vinn’s team with this new article on predatory drill holes in Cambrian and Ordovician brachiopods. Predation in the fossil record is always interesting, especially in the early Paleozoic. Here is the abstr… Continue reading

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Israeli Graduate Student Yael Leshno Afriat summarizes her work in the Middle Jurassic of Israel

For several years I’ve been in the advising circle of Yael Leshno Afriat, a geology graduate student at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She has been working in the gorgeous Middle Jurassic units of northern and southern Israel — rocks &… Continue reading

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A Wooster Geologist goes virtual

Wooster, Ohio — We can’t let the eventful year of 2020 to pass without some record in this blog of how these difficult times profoundly affected Wooster’s Department of Earth Sciences. Along with the rest of the American educational s… Continue reading

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A new paper describing and interpreting a new crinoid from the Upper Ordovician of Estonia

I am very pleased to announce that Lena Cole, Bill Ausich, and I have a new article that appeared (on a dramatic election day in the USA!) in Papers in Palaeontology: “A Hirnantian holdover from the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction: … Contin… Continue reading

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New Paper: Quantifying ecospace utilization and ecosystem engineering during the early Phanerozoic — The role of bioturbation and bioerosion

I am thrilled to announce the publication today of this comprehensive open-access paper in Science Advances: “Quantifying ecospace utilization and ecosystem engineering during the early Phanerozoic — The role of bioturbation and bioerosion“… Continue reading

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