Author Archives: Mark Wilson

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 →

Our version above of the bivalve Inoceramus is actually rather small compared to how big it can get. The record holder is a specimen 187 centimeters in diameter (over six feet) in the Geological Museum of Copenhagen. This Wooster Inoceramus … Con… Continue reading →

Our beloved Scovel Hall lecture rooms are finally being updated. The fixed seats in Room 105 endured by generations of student behinds are headed to the dumpster (including their 1985 color scheme) and will be replaced by tables and movable … Con… Continue reading →

This is one of my favorite trace fossils. Rusophycus pudicum Hall, 1852, is its formal name. It was made by a trilobite digging down into the seafloor sediment back during the Ordovician Period in what is now southern Ohio. It … Continue reading … Continue reading →

Sure it is intellectually stimulating, adventurous and fun, but geology is also an important field for the present and future according to the latest issue of Forbes magazine. Geology is ranked as number 7 in the most valuable college majors, … C… Continue reading →

Steve Dornbos (’97), now a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and I found these intricate shells by the hundreds in the Nicosia Formation (Pliocene) of Cyprus during his Independent Study field work. (We published this study in… Continue reading →

The most effective agents of marine bioerosion today are among the simplest of animals: clionaid sponges. The traces they make in carbonate substrates are spherical chambers connected by short tunnels, as shown above in a modern example excavated in an… Continue reading →

WOOSTER, OHIO–The College of Wooster requires an Independent Study (I.S.) thesis (or performance) from all of its graduates. These are not just extended literature reviews, but unique research projects crafted for and by each of our students. We … Continue reading →

It’s no ordinary oyster, of course, because it comes from Texas. It certainly is the largest oyster I’ve ever seen. Wooster received it as part of a large donation in 2010. (You can see students studying it in this previous … Continue… Continue reading →

This summer ten College of Wooster faculty will be traveling to Jordan and the Jerusalem area for an extended study seminar on conflict and cooperation between Jordanians, Israelis and Palestinians. We are supported by the Hales Fund at Wooster adminis… Continue reading →