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25 December 2023
The Greywacke, by Nick Davidson
Just finished a geologically focused book that the readers of this blog might be interested in. It is a history of work on delineating the early part of the Phanerozoic timescale in Wales and Scotland. The majority of the book is about Adam Sedgewick and Roderick Murchison and their close collaboration and increasing divergence and eventual total estrangement as they sought to sort out the boundaries of different periods of …
29 January 2021
Friday fold: revisiting the Geoscience Communication Pardee Symposium
I have two Friday folds for you today, both by geovisualizers who contributed to the 2019 Geological Society of America Pardee Symposium on Geoscience Communication in Phoenix, Arizona: The first is a painting by talented geoartist Emma Theresa Jude, showing a fold at Caithness, Scotland. The fold in question can be seen at the site of Figure 5 of this paper. I love Emma’s art. What other lovely folds have you …
9 October 2020
Friday fold: Torcross
Looks like we’re sticking with the U.K. for Friday folds, for the time being… This lovely beast comes to us from Torcross, via Danny Stubbs, who shared it on Twitter this past week. That’s from the Meadfoot Group of slates, cross-cut by quartz veins. In this follow-up image, Danny shares that sometimes the quartz veins have enjoyed some folding too: Happy Friday to all.
2 October 2020
Friday fold: Northumberland
For the Friday fold this week, we travel to Northumberland, U.K. for this beautiful fold pair: Robert McKibbin posted this image on Twitter this week, and graciously allowed me to feature it here. Thank you Robert! Happy Friday to all.
11 September 2020
Friday fold: Boscastle, Cornwall
A hilly region of Cornwall, U.K. features beautiful folding, and a fuzzy field assistant!
29 January 2019
The Parallel Roads of Glen Roy
What can we learn from Scotland’s Parallel Roads of Glen Roy?
1 March 2018
A GIGAmacro view of a cool outcrop in Scotland
As noted previously, the old way of viewing gigapixel imagery is no more. But there is a new, better way. The GIGAmacro company has a better viewing platform that can be used either with images uploaded to their server or with pre-existing images that currently “live” at GigaPan.com. Here’s an example: a roadcut of limestone of the Grudaidh Formation (Durness Group) in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, near Ardvreck Castle, …
2 February 2018
Friday fold: 3D model from the Portsoy Shear Zone
The Friday fold is a really cool 3D model of differentially-weathered calc-silicate rocks in Scotland that were folded during the Caledonian Orogeny.
3 January 2018
The Old Man of Hoy, a sea stack in Orkney
A sea stack on the west coast of Orkney showcases Devonian sedimentary strata and implies terrific storm waves in its geomorphology.
An odd mystery rock from Shetland
Any readers have any idea what this strange rock is? It’s got wild patterns! These samples were in the garden of a local rockhound in Lerwick; I have zero idea what the mineralogy is; I was just stunned by the “scale-like” pattern of gray and pink. I’d be eager to hear your ideas what this might be. Thanks very much in advance!
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.