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.

Crinoid hunting in ancient Baltica

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–Bill Ausich (Ohio State University) and I have a grant from the National Geographic Society to study the “origination and evolution of Middle Paleozoic crinoids on the Baltica paleocontinent“. Bill is the prime mov… Continue reading

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Silurian limestone under our feet

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–The 2012 Wooster Estonia expedition had its first official time in the field this afternoon. Jonah, Richa and I traveled the short distance from Kuressaare to the historical Sõrve peninsula in the extreme southwest of Saarema… Continue reading

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Wooster Geologists return to Estonia

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–It took longer than we expected, but three Wooster geologists and four colleagues from Ohio State University are finally on the island of Saaremaa and ready for our fieldwork in the Silurian limestones along the shores here an… Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Wiggly little foraminiferans from the Middle Jurassic of southern England

These shell fragments are of the oyster Praeexogyra hebridica var. elongata, and I picked them up long ago from a remarkable unit made almost entirely of them. It is the Elongata Bed at the base of the Frome Clay (Middle … Continue reading → Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: A mastodon tusk (Late Pleistocene of Holmes County, Ohio)

This long and weathered tusk sits in a display case outside my office. It is from the American Mastodon (Mammut americanum) and was found many decades ago in Holmes County, just south of Wooster. A tooth found with it was … Continue reading → Continue reading

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Coastal Dead Sea Views from the Israeli Side

Since I’m an in abstentia member of this intrepid Hales Group travel team, I’m contributing a brief post in response to their visit to the Jordanian coast of the Dead Sea. This spring an Independent Study student (Melissa Torma) and …… Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossil of the Week: a long and skinny bryozoan (Upper Cretaceous of Wyoming and South Dakota, USA)

Please say hello to Pierrella larsoni Wilson & Taylor 2012 — a new genus and species of ctenostome bryozoan from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) Pierre Shale of Wyoming and South Dakota. I imagine it as a graceful little thing … Continue reading

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Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: dinosaur gastroliths (Jurassic of Utah, USA)

These rounded stones are labeled in our collections as gastroliths (literally “stomach stones”) from Starr Springs near Hanksville, Wayne County, Utah. I’m featuring them this week in honor of our Utah Project team working right now i… Continue reading

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Wooster Geologist at Fort Ligonier, Pennsylvania: Choosing your ground geologically

This afternoon, the first day of Fall Break at The College of Wooster, my family began a weekend excursion to southern Pennsylvania — our first vacation since the pandemic. We first visited one of my favorite reconstructed frontier outposts: Fort… Continue reading

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Wooster Geologist on the Blue Ridge of Virginia

The summer field season has started for Wooster geologists. Greg Wiles is now in southern Alaska with his students doing dendrochronology and geomorphology. Meagen Pollock and Shelley Judge are running an integrated project in west-central Utah with th… Continue reading

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