You are browsing the archive for February 2012 - Page 3 of 3 - Mountain Beltway.
9 February 2012
InTeGrate, and some UTEP folds
I’m in El Paso, Texas, today (and tomorrow and Saturday), collaborating on a massive brainstorming session for a new NSF-funded initiative called InTeGrate, which is all about Interdisciplinary Teaching of Geoscience for a Sustainable Future. As leader Cathy Manduca said today when she opened our session, “We’re here to save the world!” And we’re going to do that by improving geoscience literacy (including at two-year colleges, which is why I’m …
8 February 2012
“Got migmatite?”
Had this brainstorm a few weeks back (or maybe months?). Been meaning to blog it up, but hadn’t gotten the chance to flesh it out. The geologic map of the Commonwealth comes from Chuck Bailey of William & Mary, who gave me permission to use it for this project. Anyhow – do you think there are enough Virginia geology nerds out there that I could sell these bumper stickers at …
7 February 2012
I have no idea
This image has been in my “to blog” folder for more than a year: But here’s the thing – I can’t think of what I was going for when I drew this. The closest I can figure is that I was trying to illustrate conceptually what differentiates diamictites from other poorly sorted sedimentary rocks. Any other ideas what I might have been thinking? Notice how small it is (only 468 …
6 February 2012
Folded BIFs of Soudan, Minnesota
Why are these people smiling? photo by Yvette Kuiper Because they are structural geologists, and they are psyched to be at an extraordinary outcrop: This is a famous pavement outcrop of polyphase-folded banded iron formation (BIF) near Soudan, Minnesota. I went there last fall before the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, on the Structural Geology of the Superior Craton’s sub-province boundaries field trip. “Oh YEAH!” What you’re …
4 February 2012
The top 10 reasons I love structure
In the past 24 hours, Erik Klemetti and Siim Sepp both gave us their top ten reasons for loving their branches of geo-science. Their lists demonstrated their passion for (respectively) volcanoes and sand, and so I feel inspired to make a list, too. Here are the top 10 reasons I love structural geology: 10. It’s something. What I mean by this, is: If you’re going to go into geology or …
3 February 2012
Friday fold: quarry denizen
This beastie lives in an old quarry in West Virginia, along old Route 55. And from a slightly different perspective… This fold is in Devonian limestones of the Helderberg Group, kinked up probably during the Alleghanian Orogeny (the assembly of Pangea) in the late Paleozoic.
2 February 2012
Beautiful rust
Rust swirls on shale fragment, new New Route 55, Valley & Ridge province of West Virginia. I’m not sure if I can call this “Liesegang banding,” since it’s just on the joint surface (two-dimensional) rather than permeating the rock in a three-dimensional blob. Anyhow… It’s pretty.
1 February 2012
Sed or meta? Yes.
Today, two examples of outcrops that reveal an overprinting relationship between metamorphic cleavage and sedimentary bedding. Both are Devonian in depositional age, from the new stretch of New Route 55 in West Virginia, west of Moorefield. The first is from limestones of the Helderberg Group, and the second is from shale of the Brallier Formation. In both cases, the metamorphic overprint came during the late Paleozoic Alleghanian Orogeny, the mountain-building …
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.