30 October 2010
Orbs in the floor
Posted by Callan Bentley
Happy Saturday morning, everyone. I’m on my way down to the National Mall for fellow Tribesman Jon Stewart’s “Restoring Sanity” rally, but I thought I would just quickly post a little geological treat for Mountain Beltway readers. These are pisolites (basically like a big oolite, but without the biological component that would qualify them as oncolites), as seen in the travertine panels that make up the floor of the conference center on the campus of Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, where the Tectonic Crossroads conference was held a few weeks ago. They are beautiful little cross-sections of concentrically-laminated orbs of calcite. Enjoy!
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.
Any way to get the stories on the front page to auto expand? At least the newest one?
Hi Ben,
That’s what I said! The AGU staff is aware that I would prefer to have the full posts display on the main “home” page, but there’s some glitch with it at the moment. They assure me that it will change soon. Apparently one of the issues is that the large number of photos I post make it hard for the page to load up, particularly on mobile devices. But I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one that feels that way. Thanks for the comment.
C
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Am Geophysical Union, Callan Bentley. Callan Bentley said: Pisolites in the floor: https://blogs.agu.org/mountainbeltway/2010/10/30/orbs-in-the-floor/ […]
[…] donde en la oscuridad es capaz de formar bellas perlas de las cavernas (conocidas en el argot como pisolitas) acumulando pacientemente cristales de algunos minerales en torno a un minúsculo núcleo. Incluso […]