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You are browsing the archive for January 2011 - Mountain Beltway.

31 January 2011

Accretionary Wedge #30: the Bake Sale

The 30th edition of the “Accretionary Wedge” blog carnival is hosted at Mountain Beltway. A delectable array of foods, mainly dessert, are displayed. The treats demonstrate a wide array of geologic processes. Eat, drink, and be geologic!

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29 January 2011

Capadoccia 2b – panorama

Click this image to go to a big panorama (but not big enough to be hosted by Gigapan) of one of the valleys near Göreme, Capadoccia, Turkey: Note: The agriculture that lines the bottom of the valley. The colors of the tuff, and how they vary from place to place. The differentially eroding layer that dips off to the left (best exposed on the right).

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Capadoccia 2a

Any questions?

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28 January 2011

Friday fold: Mavericks

The Friday fold is a series of strata underwater near California’s famed “Mavericks” surf break.

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27 January 2011

Do the math

A video, “The Dreaded Stairs,” has been getting some circulation lately on Facebook. It shows what happens when a staircase (beside an escalator) gets a makeover which features piano-style keys which make sounds when they are trod upon. Watch the video if you would like; I’m going to focus on the accompanying blurb, which reads: There is a set of stairs, with a moving escalator next to it …. both …

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Cappadocia 1

Today, you get the first of several batches of photos dealing with one of the most magical places I’ve ever been, the Cappadocia region of Turkey. Cappadocia (pronounced “kap-uh-doke-ee-yuh“) is an area of eroded volcanic tuffs. The overall effect is badlands-like, but without the micro-turrets and hoodoos. The individual erosional remnants are larger in Cappadocia than in places like Bryce Canyon, Utah. Why this is, I don’t know – it …

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26 January 2011

Ken Rasmussen is outstanding faculty!

This is from an e-mail I just got from Dr. Robert Templin, the President of Northern Virginia Community College, in reference to my colleague Ken Rasmussen: Dear Colleague, I am very pleased to share with you the news that Dr. Kenneth Rasmussen, Professor of Geology at the Annandale Campus, is a recipient of the Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award for 2011.  This award, sponsored by Dominion and administered by the State …

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The making of Baker’s Quarry

So here’s how I made that cake I showed you Monday. Step 1: Collect the necessary ingredients: (Nice job with the stitching, Photoshop… jeez!) Step 2: Clear your schedule and start baking. My first layer was to be “the basement complex” and so I wanted something marbled in appearance. Mixing chocolate-powder-stained batter with regular yellow batter was the method, and I threw chocolate chips into the mafic batter and “white …

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25 January 2011

Uncommon Carriers, by John McPhee

Over the weekend, hideously cold temperatures kept me indoors. I baked a cake, I went to see the new movie “True Grit” (excellent), and I read the 2006 compilation of John McPhee’s writing on transportation, Uncommon Carriers. Like most everybody I know, I came to McPhee based on his geology writings — the quartet of books that were collectively republished en masse in 1998 as Annals of the Former World, …

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Uncommon Carriers, by John McPhee

Over the weekend, hideously cold temperatures kept me indoors. I baked a cake, I went to see the new movie “True Grit” (excellent), and I read the 2006 compilation of John McPhee’s writing on transportation, Uncommon Carriers. Like most everybody I know, I came to McPhee based on his geology writings — the quartet of books that were collectively republished en masse in 1998 as Annals of the Former World, …

Read More >>

3 Comments/Trackbacks >>