ScotBlogs

After several years of being department chair, I am very much enjoying being on research leave this year.  A research leave is an opportunity for Wooster faculty to take a semester or a year just to focus on our research, without … Continue reading →

Not actually fossils this week, but cool nonetheless. This complex specimen is in our Invertebrate Paleontology teaching collection with no label giving its original location. In the foreground is the underside of a slipper shell gastropod identified as Crepidula fornicata. … Continue reading →

AMHERST, MA – Our Keck project studying the construction of a glaciovolcanic ridge in southwest Iceland is in full swing and our students are hard at work on their research. You may remember that we traveled to Iceland this summer to … Continue reading →

Technically these are “subfossils” since this appears to be an old shell still within the Holocene, although it is possibly eroded out of Pleistocene sediments and then redeposited on a Florida beach. It is a muricid snail eroded enough to … Continue reading →

This week’s fossil comes from our teaching collection. It’s label appears to be from the late 19th Century. It is a naticid gastropod (“moon snail“) listed as Polinices galianor. That name, which I can only find in two lists and … Continue reading →

Here’s the latest update sent to campus this evening from Dean of Students Scott Brown:  Dear Wooster Family: I write with the great news that Alex is well enough to travel back to Wisconsin tomorrow, where he will continue his … Continue reading →

It is always exciting to a geologist when thin-sections of curious rocks are completed and ready for view. A thin-section is a wafer of rock (30 microns thick) glues to a glass slide and examined by transmitted light through a … Continue reading →

Sometimes I choose a Fossil of the Week from our Invertebrate Paleontology teaching collection because students have responded to it in some way. This week’s fossil brachiopod has confused my students a bit because it is an internal mold (unusual … Continue reading →

Why has SpaceX chosen methane to fuel its Raptor rocket engine? Robert Goddard’s first rockets used liquid oxygen O2 or LOX and gasoline. The Saturn V moon rocket first stage used LOX and refined kerosene. The Saturn V second stage used … Continue reading →

The latest update from Dean of Students Scott Brown on Alex Melchert’s recovery … Dear Wooster Community: I write to share a brief update on Alex’s progress. His sister said yesterday was “a very good day,” with Alex able to … Continue reading →