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February 5, 2018
Monday Geology Picture: Gold Train
This week I’m sharing a picture of a bullion coach, or a special train that was used to transport gold from the mines in the Johannesburg area to the seaside towns of Durban and Cape Town in South Africa. This particular train is on display at Gold Reef City, a gold mining themed amusement park. You can go and see the train yourself if you visit the park. Gold theft …
January 29, 2018
Monday Geology Picture: Oorlogskloof Glacial Pavement
This week I’m sharing a gorgeous picture of the Oorlogskloof Glacial Pavement, which is located in the Northern Cape Province here in South Africa. You can read more about this pavement here. I’ll be blogging more about this pavement soon, so stay tuned!
January 22, 2018
Monday Geology Picture: Pele’s Hair
For this week’s post, here’s a picture showing a lovely example of Pele’s Hair, which is a type of volcanic glass that consists of fibers or thin strands. Although I’ve visited many volcanoes (including a few active ones) over the years, I’ve never seen Pele’s Hair in the field. So, I was quite happy to see this excellent example in the volcano museum on Réunion Island. I visited the museum during …
January 15, 2018
Monday Geology Picture: Constantia Granite
For this week’s post, here’s a picture that I took yesterday during a Sunday afternoon hike with my family. We went for an easy stroll, baby and all, along the Alphen Trail in the Constantia region of Cape Town here in South Africa. My son is 3 months old now, and we’re just starting to go on some easy hikes as a family. The Alphen Trail is more of a …
January 8, 2018
Monday Geology Picture: Vintage Field Vehicle
I really enjoy looking at old geology textbooks, which often have incredible photos and drawings in them. For example, check out the above photo from an old geology textbook that I picked up at a secondhand bookshop. Look at that vintage field vehicle! Does anyone know what kind of car that is? The information in old geology textbooks (especially ones published before plate tectonics was understood) is often incorrect, but …
January 1, 2018
Monday Geology Picture: Lion’s Head Inselberg
Happy New Year! I’m going to do my best to blog more regularly in 2018, starting with this first “Monday Geology Picture” post. This week I’m sharing a view of Lion’s Head (the distinctive mountain in the background of the picture), an inselberg here in Cape Town, South Africa, the city where I live. I took this picture a few weeks ago during a walk with my family along Sea Point …
December 4, 2017
Monday Geology Picture: Garnet Biotite Tabletop
Since re-starting my blogging, I missed a few weeks of weekly pictures. My apologies! Life with a newborn does not leave much extra time, I’m afraid! I’ll try to be more consistent with my blogging in December and going into the new year. However, I have a great picture for today: a close-up snap of a lovely stone tabletop that I recently saw, believe it or not, at a McDonald’s …
November 6, 2017
Monday Geology Picture: Inselberg View
For this week’s picture, here’s a lovely view of an inselberg and the Twelve Apostles section of Table Mountain here in Cape Town, South Africa. Note the layers of sedimentary rocks of which the mountain is made. In the foreground, you can see some rocks of the Cape Granite Suite, which is about 550 million years old.
October 30, 2017
Monday Geology Picture: Pretty Pahoehoe
For this week’s picture, here’s another lovely shot of pahoehoe basalt that I took during a March 2017 vacation to Réunion Island. I previously shared a picture of some Réunion pahoehoe here.
October 23, 2017
Monday Geology Picture: Basaltic Weathering
For this week’s picture, here’s an image of a relatively young basaltic surface weathering. You can see yellow-green olivine crystals weathering out of the dark matrix. Olivine is one of the first minerals to weather out of rocks, so you can tell that these basalts must be young. Older basalts generally don’t contain fresh olivine, at least not any crystals that you can easily identify with the naked eye. I …
