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13 November 2020
Friday fold: stairsteps in the Tonoloway
A quick “Friday fold” that is expressed in three dimensions – “stairstep” style folds deforming a bed of Tonoloway Formation dolostone…
7 August 2020
Friday fold: syncline in Helderberg Group limestones
I went on a day of field work last week to Corridor H, West Virginia, to help make drone-based photogrammetric 3D models of the huge outcrops there. One site we stopped at is this beautiful V-shaped syncline in Devonian-aged Helderberg Group limestones. Click to enlarge Here are two layers traced out: Here is a GigaPan that Alan Pitts shot of this outcrop several years ago, when it was a bit …
8 May 2020
Friday fold: Wills Mountain Anticline
Eric Fulmer (who pitched in with last week’s Friday fold) returns this week with another treasure. He writes, I was in Hopeville, WV a couple of years ago. The entire area between Cabins and Hopeville is a real joy (geologically and recreationally) as some of the most resistant rocks of the Mid-Atlantic Appalachians are folded and exposed in quick succession and with great relief. I am particularly fond of seeing …
1 May 2020
Friday fold: Hopeville Anticline
Reader Eric Fulmer has contributed a fold as a balm for the end of another week of COVID-19 self-quarantine. Check it out: Eric writes, I was in Hopeville, WV a couple of years ago. The entire area between Cabins and Hopeville is a real joy (geologically and recreationally) as some of the most resistant rocks of the Mid-Atlantic Appalachians are folded and exposed in quick succession and with great relief. …
18 October 2019
Friday folds from the Foreknobs Formation
TGIF! That’s my seven year old field assistant showing off the shape of a syncline in shale, siltstone, and fine sandstone of the Foreknobs Formation, a Devonian nearshore package of clastic sediment in the Valley & Ridge Province of eastern West Virginia. Want to see something freaky for Halloween? Photoshop can make it happen: Ewwww. Creepy! Another shot of the same fold, with a thick massive sand above a thicker …
14 June 2019
Friday fold: kinked cleavage at Harpers Ferry
Last weekend was the annual meeting of the eastern section of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. On Friday afternoon, we visited Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and my colleague Beth Doyle led a great field trip to examine the rocks exposed there. This was my favorite outcrop we saw: Here is a close up of this outcrop, which is framed by (anthropogenic) rock wall: Dipping shallowly from upper left to …
12 October 2018
Friday fold: the Devil’s Backbone and its neighbor
It’s Friday; time to stretch our backbones out in anticipation of the weekend. Let’s look to a backboney-named Friday fold for a little inspiration… …And what’s that, just down the road? Another fold, in need of a catchy name…
14 March 2018
New media to show off exemplary features of the Devonian-aged Hampshire Formation along Corridor H, West Virginia
Last week, I was in Morgantown, West Virginia, to deliver a colloquium talk to the geology department at West Virginia University of geological visualization. The next day, I took some time on the way home to geologize a bit on the road called Corridor H, a gorgeous transect through the eastern Allegheny Plateau and western Valley & Ridge provinces. I focused that day on the Hampshire Formation, Foreknobs Formation, and …
29 September 2017
Friday folds: soft sediment deformation in thin sections of MTD sandstone
The Friday folds are small soft-sediment deformational features within a dismembered, folded sandstone (a “ploudin”) from a mass transport deposit from the latest Devonian of West Virginia.
6 June 2017
Loading sags in homogeneous lithologies?
Can soft sediment deformation “loading structures” (ball & pillow) occur when the two strata are identical in composition? Grok on these field photos and chime in with your best hypothesis.
23 May 2017
Silurian tidal flat carbonates of the Tonoloway Formation
Journey to the Silurian period in what is today the Valley & Ridge province of eastern West Virginia to see some exquisite sedimentary rocks that represent deposition in a very arid, very shallow setting.
13 May 2017
Slump palimpsest, Corridor H
There’s a section of my favorite road, the lovely nowhere-to-nowhere Corridor H, that seems to be having some issues with slumping. I noted this in November of 2015, and I return to the topic today. Here’s a look at the slope, with old drainage “French drains” installed, and a fresh scarp transecting it just the same: I see at least three small scarps there. A short distance further to the …
9 May 2017
Ripples in Foreknobs
The Foreknobs Formation is a Devonian unit in the Valley & Ridge province of the Mid-Atlantic Region. It was deposited in relatively shallow near-shore conditions during the Acadian Orogeny. On a field trip to Corridor H, a new highway transecting the West Virginian Valley & Ridge province on Monday, I stopped to document a couple of beds showing very nice ripple marks. These ones are symmetrical, and thus likely represent …
21 April 2017
Friday (coal)d
Often I feature a fold photo here on Friday, but today I give you a folded coal, so therefore a “coald” – this is from the Pennsylvanian Conemaugh Formation on the Alleghany Plateau in West Virginia, near Bismarck. Photo by Sebastian Andres Kaempfe Droguett.
17 April 2017
Liesegang rings in a natural sandstone “tile”
An easter egg on a piece of toast? No, it’s a nice example of Liesegang rings in a slab of sandstone. Explore more in this blog post.
8 December 2016
Silent samples, holey samples
Two very different samples tell stories that are full of holes. What’s going on with this weathered sandstone? What’s going on with this fossil scallop shell?
2 May 2016
3D models to spin and twist
More 3D models: digital facsimiles of real rock samples. Check them out and explore! Clinker from the Powder River Basin, Wyoming: [sketchfab id=”afb351be49f04c8eab1acc29a8a2bcfb” start=”0″ spin=”” controls=”0″] Ripple marks from the Rose Hill Formation, West Virginia: [sketchfab id=”6b56924ee2f84dd2821c4cb30e4869f9″ start=”0″ spin=”” controls=”0″] Meta-komatiite from the Red Lake Greenstone Belt, northern Ontario, Canada: [sketchfab id=”53dc4d161c974d7b86f70639062551e0″ start=”0″ spin=”” controls=”0″]
27 March 2016
Another trio of 3D models
Here are three more of my Photoscan-generated, Sketchfab-hosted 3D models of rock samples: Mud cracks in Tonoloway Formation tidal flat carbonates, Corridor H, West Virginia: [sketchfab id=”49cfc017248e44c2aa8b8bcdfa18facd” start=”0″ spin=”” controls=”0″] Diorite from the eastern Sierra Nevada of California: [sketchfab id=”36184956acb94476ae84569b8fbc300b” start=”0″ spin=”” controls=”0″] Vein cross-cutting foliated & lineated gneiss, Blue Ridge basement complex, Virginia: [sketchfab id=”1ebf2edc042d4cdf9493d0ff7963aff5″ start=”0″ spin=”” controls=”0″]
17 February 2016
3D virtual sample of gastropod-rich Reynolds Limestone
Check this out: [sketchfab id=”2acb8b4130ad467791fa62c00d7a8b18″ start=”0″ spin=”” controls=”0″] It’s a sample of the Reynolds Limestone, a member of the Mississippian-aged Mauch Chunk Formation, chock full of gastropod fossils. The image here is a 3D model made with Agisoft PhotoScan, a 3D model rendering program. The only input was a series of ~32 photos taken of the sample at various angles and orientations. Alan Pitts then posted it to his Sketchfab …
15 January 2016
Friday fold: Harpers Ferry
The geology east of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, is cool. It’s Blue Ridge rocks, from basement to the cover sequence, tilted to the west and broken and repeated by the Short Hill Fault. Here’s a look at a detail of the Geology of the Harpers Ferry quadrangle by Southworth and Brezinski (1996). So there’s a fault! Good – but the title of this post isn’t “Friday fault” – Where’s the …
