December 26, 2013

LASI V Field Trip in Pictures

Posted by Evelyn Mervine

I’ve been meaning for months to post some pictures from the LASI V Field Trip that I participated in just over a year ago in November 2012. However, despite my best intentions, I never ended up posting some field trip pictures. This is primarily because I lost all of my own LASI V field trip pictures when my laptop and a hard drive were stolen from my apartment back in April. I was quite upset about this and have now diligently backed up all of my computer data online as well as on multiple hard drives. Fortunately, my fellow field trip participants Ben Manton and Stephanie Scheiber were kind enough to send me some of their pictures to share with you here on Georneys.

In the interest of wrapping up a few things here on Georneys before the end of the year, I thought I’d (finally!) share some pictures from the LASI V field trip. You can find my previous posts about LASI V here. A good introductory post about LASI V is here. In brief, the LASI V workshop was a gathering of geologists from around the world to discuss the geology of subvolcanic systems such as sills, dykes, and laccoliths. The field trip went to several places in South Africa’s Karoo region to look at large dolerite sills, hydrothermal vent complexes, and other subvolcanic features which have intruded into various sedimentary units.

Without futher ado, here are some pictures from the LASI V field trip:

Sills on top of a hill, with termite mounds in the foreground. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

Dolerite sills on top of a hill, with termite mounds in the foreground. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

On top of a sill in the Golden Valley region. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

The view from the top of a dolerite sill in the Golden Valley region. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

Sills in Golden Valley. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

Impressive dolerite sills in Golden Valley. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

A beautiful view in the Karoo. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

A beautiful view in the Karoo. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

Whitkop feature. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

Whitkop, a hydrothermal vent feature.  Whitkop means “white head” or “white little hill”. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

Fluid flow features on Whitkop. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

Fluid flow features on Whitkop. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

Circular pipe structures in the Whitkop hydrothermal vent. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

Circular pipe structures on Whitkop. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

Group hiking up a steep slope. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

Checking out some geology (spherical weathering, among other things) on a steep slope. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

Another beautiful view in the Karoo. Picture courtesy of Ben Maton.

Another beautiful view in the Karoo. Picture courtesy of Ben Manton.

Impressive spheroidal weathering of a dolerite sill. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

Impressive spheroidal weathering of a dolerite sill. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

More spheroidal weathering. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

More spheroidal weathering. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

Dwyka tillite, one of my favorite rocks! Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

Dwyka tillite, one of my favorite rocks! Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

Another view of Dwyka tillite. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

Another view of Dwyka tillite. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

A hydrothermal vent complex... with cows. There are many. many cows and sheep in the Karoo! Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

A hydrothermal vent complex… with cows. There are many. many cows and sheep in the Karoo! Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

A windmill in the foreground, a dolerite sill in the background. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

A windmill and termite mounds in the foreground, dolerite sills in the background. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

Geologists amongst the dolerite sills. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.

Geologists amongst the dolerite sills. Picture courtesy of Stephanie Scheiber.