Author Archives: Mark Wilson

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–Today our Wooster Geology team visited a favorite outcrop of mine: the Äigu Beds of the Kaugatuma Formation exposed on the northwestern shore of the Sõrve Peninsula on Saaremaa. These are Late Silurian (Pridoli) limestones w… Continue reading →

KURESSAARE, SAAREMAA, ESTONIA–The Wooster Geologists Estonia Team today braved the Baltic Sea again and took a ferry from the island of Hiiumaa to return to their previous field sites on the island of Saaremaa. We worked at Soeginina Cliff on &#8… Continue reading →

KÄINA, ESTONIA–Today we had our last visit to our Silurian quarry working site (where I photographed the Paleofavosites coral fossil above, which by the way was preserved upside-down in the sequence), and then we had lunch in the town of …… Continue reading →

The Great Pyramids of Egypt are made primarily of a yellowish limestone. About 40% of that limestone is made of the fossil type pictured above. These are foraminiferans (single-celled organisms with shells) that lived by the countless billions during t… Continue reading →

KÄINA, ESTONIA–It is not yet one of my regular bits of field equipment, and I am certainly far from an expert with its use, but I can say a few things about the value of an iPad in geological fieldwork. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

KÄINA, ESTONIA–This is a shout-out to our Wooster Geology colleagues currently working on the barren volcanic island of Iceland. We thought they might want a break from the bleak expanses of black basalt for a little color of wildlife from &#823… Continue reading →

KÄINA, ESTONIA–Rachel, Nick and I worked today in our lonely quarry on Hiiumaa measuring and describing this section of Lower Silurian (Llandovery, Rhuddanian) rocks and fossils. This is the fieldwork for Rachel’s Senior Independent Study. Continue reading →

KÄINA, ESTONIA–Today we moved our geological investigations from Saaremaa to the island to the north: Hiiumaa. Our friend Olev Vinn of Tartu University then led us to an abandoned quarry in the Hilliste Formation (Lower Silurian). This made Rach… Continue reading →

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–We have gotten to know the western coastline of Saaremaa very well and would like to simply share some of the gorgeous flowers found there. All of these grow in alvars, which are environments on limestone bedrock with thin &#8… Continue reading →

KURESSAARE, ESTONIA–Hard-rock geologists sometimes complain that I flood this blog with too many sedimentary rocks and fossils (and just wait until I get to the Estonian wildflowers!). There are actually quite a few igneous and metamorphic rocks … Continue reading →