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6 June 2011
DCSWA tour
Yesterday, I took about fifteen members of the DC Science Writer’s Association on a walking tour of DC’s geology. I was honored to present the capital city’s epic geologic story to an esteemed crowd of professional science writers from Nature, Science, the National Academies, the National Institutes of Health, the Washington Post, and other institutions. Here are a few photos that Harvey Leifert took on the trip: …Evidently I gesticulate …
Patent leather beetle
It’s a morning for big bugs, evidently. Chris Town found a giant water bug on the other side of the planet, and as I arrived on campus, I found a female patent leather beetle crossing the parking lot. I imaged her a couple of different ways – a macro photo pair with my Canon Elph, and then an attempt at scanning her (though she didn’t stay still, with interesting color …
3 June 2011
Friday fold: kinked phyllite from Bonner, Montana
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHi7AJwjhbI”]
2 June 2011
Conglomerate from Dolly Sods
While my focus was more on bugs and plants than geology this time around, I did hike a new trail at Dolly Sods this past weekend, and on that trail I found several nice boulders of conglomerate. These stood out as being much coarser than the pervasive quartz sandstone of the Pennsylvanian-aged Conemaugh Group which otherwise dominates the outcrops and float of Dolly Sods. Therefore, they were photo-worthy. The conglomerate …
1 June 2011
A couple of plants from Dolly Sods
It wasn’t just bugs that we saw at Dolly Sods, West Virginia, over the weekend. There were some plants, too. Here’s a look at the typical Dolly Sods scene, with spruce trees and aspen and alder and a boggy trail: “Lady slipper” orchid: Fiddleheads unfurling into ferns: And, of course, one of my favorite things to do with plants is to reverse the photosynthesis that constructed them:
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.