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March 23, 2015
Monday Geology Picture: Samail Ophiolite Plane View
I’m busy traveling at the moment, so Georneys will continue to be quiet for another couple of weeks. However, I thought that I’d quickly share a picture from my recent flight for this week’s “Monday Geology Picture” post. This picture shows the impressive topography of the Samail Ophiolite, which is located in northern Oman and the United Arab Emirates. An ophiolite is a section of oceanic crust and mantle that …
October 21, 2013
Monday Geology Picture: A Field Geologist’s Hotel Room
Have you ever stayed in a hotel room and packed it to the brim with camping gear and scientific equipment and samples? Then chances are you’re a field geologist! I took the above picture at a hotel in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman after 4 weeks of fieldwork in the Samail Ophiolite back in 2009. Our hotel room was packed full of camping gear, boxes of rocks and water samples, and various …
March 26, 2012
Monday Geology Picture: Serpentinized Harzburgite in Thin Section
For this week’s Monday Geology Picture, I thought I would share a picture of peridotite in thin section viewed under a microscope. This particular peridotite originates from the Samail Ophiolite, Sultanate of Oman, and is a weakly-deformed harzburgite that is ~40% serpentinized. You can see the fine network of serpentine veins throughout the sample. The brightly-colored patches are olivine and pyroxene minerals. I really enjoy looking at rocks in thin …
March 17, 2012
Ophiolite and Trace Fossil Mash-Up
A few weeks ago on Twitter, I expressed amazement that I had accumulated 800 followers. Unfortunately, I neglected to save the series of tweets, but I tweeted something along the lines of: “Wow. 800 followers. I can’t believe so many people are interested in ophiolites and trace fossils.” I tweeted this because ophiolites and trace fossils are the topics I have been blogging about the most in recent months. In …
March 12, 2012
Monday Geology Picture: Listwanite Hills in the Sultanate of Oman
Today I am going to share some pictures of listwanite (also sometimes spelled listvenite, listvanite, or listwaenite), an unusual rock type that I bet even some of the well-educated geologists who read this blog have never seen or even read about. I don’t even think there’s a wikipedia entry about listwanite. Perhaps I’ll write one after my thesis defense next month. Listwanite forms when ultramafic rocks (most commonly mantle peridotites) …
January 18, 2012
Mantle Peridotite in the Samail Ophiolite, Oman
Over the past couple of weeks, I posted pictures of pillow basalts and sheeted dikes in the Samail Ophiolite, Oman. To round out the crustal ophiolite sequence, I thought I would post a couple of pictures of mantle peridotite in the Samail Ophiolite. As you can see in the below pictures, mantle peridotite in the Samail Ophiolite is generally highly-weathered and a dullish brown color. Harzburgite tends to be a …
January 17, 2012
Sheeted Dikes in the Samail Ophiolite, Oman
Last week I posted a picture of pillow basalts in the Samail Ophiolite, Oman. I recently visited Oman for a geology conference, and I was fortunate enough to see pillow basalts and many other wonderful geological sights in the Oman mountains and beyond. When I posted the picture of pillow basalts, geoblogger Ron Schott asked if I also had some pictures of sheeted dikes with chill margins. Good news, Ron. …
January 9, 2012
Monday Geology Picture: Pillow Basalts in the Oman Ophiolite
I’m currently in Oman for a geology conference, so today’s geology picture is one I recently took here in the Samail Ophiolite. The picture shows some weathered and fractured pillow basalts with a pencil for scale. These are not the best-looking pillow basalts in the ophiolite. The freshest ones are found in the Geotimes sequence up in the northern part of the ophiolite whereas these weathered ones are the best …
March 9, 2011
Geology Word of the Week: S is for Speleothem
Posing with a pseudostalagmite, Oman, January 2009. def. Speleothem: An encompassing term used to describe all types of chemical precipitates that form in caves. If you’ve ever been in a cave, you’ve probably seen speleothems. Speleothems generally precipitate from groundwater which has percolated through the bedrock surrounding the cave and leached various elements and compounds. When the enriched water reaches the cave, changing conditions (a large open space has very …
March 5, 2011
Jebel Misht: Accretionary Wedge #32
I am participating in my first Accretionary Wedge- yay! For those of you who don’t know, the Accretionary Wedge is a monthly “geology blog carnival” where geobloggers of all kinds are invited to blog on a theme. I contemplated participating in the past two Accretionary Wedges, but I’m very busy with my thesis this winter. Therefore, I didn’t quite have enough time and energy to bake something for Accretionary Wedge …
