6 April 2015
Exploring Mahantango Zoophycos traces in GigaPan
Posted by Callan Bentley
Recently, I posted about an excellent road cut in Fort Valley showing well-developed 10 cm+ Zoophycos trace fossils.
Presented here are three new GigaPan images (two outcrop; one macro) of Zoophycos from the Devonian-aged Mahantango Formation:
These images are part of a new “virtual field trip” that I organized to supplement my historical geology field trip to examine the geologic history of the Massanutten Synclinorium. The link there will take you to a webpage with dozens of embedded GigaPans of the region (including one annotated comparative view), showing outcrops and hand samples that tell the tale of this region through sedimentary layers recording the Cambrian through Devonian (including the waxing and waning of early-stage Appalachian mountain building recorded as clastic input), as well as deformation associated with late Paleozoic mountain-building.
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.
Thanks for putting up the post on zoophycus. I was out rockhounding in Estill county Ky and found a nice specimen about 6″ in diameter. Thanks again, Jerry