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19 March 2012
Overturned bedding in Poleta (?) Formation, White Mountains, California
After a roadside explanation just an hour and a half earlier on how the relationship between bedding and cleavage can reveal whether bedding is likely right-side-up or up-side-down, my students and I were walking up the road to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of California, and I saw this outcrop that illustrated the concept perfectly: The blue thing is a pen, to provide a sense of …
17 March 2012
Lageson goes up
One of Callan’s former advisers, Dave Lageson of Montana State University, heads to the summit of the world’s tallest mountain with his graduate student, the accomplished mountaineer Conrad Anker.
16 March 2012
Friday folds: Serendipity in the White Mountains
Callan and his field studies students encounter a lesson in the White Mountains of eastern California that combines bedding, cleavage, folding, and even fossil archaeocyathids!
15 March 2012
An edgy outcrop
That’s a big pile of alluvial fan deposits (and colluvial debris?) on the eastern edge of the highway leading from Cape Town down to Rooiels. It’s not lithified, but it does seem to be at least partially cemented (perhaps by caliche?), because the outcrop face is essentially vertical, and there seems to be very little sediment that’s falling down onto the road (at least on the day I visited). It’s …
14 March 2012
Reef Madness, by David Dobbs
Callan reviews a book about the historical battle over the meaning of coral reefs. Protagonists include Charles Darwin and the son of Louis Agassiz. The book’s author, David Dobbs, answers some questions for Callan and readers.
13 March 2012
Elevation 10,000 feet
White Mountains, California. Photo (and animated GIF) by Filip Goc. A little silliness for your Tuesday morning.
12 March 2012
Views of the Deep Springs Basin
A few shots from a week ago today, when my students and I were exploring the White Mountains of eastern California, just west of the Deep Springs Basin…
9 March 2012
Filip’s Friday Fold
While on Callan’s field course in eastern California, student Filip finds a lovely fold sample.
8 March 2012
Poleta plume paradise
On Monday, my field course students and I tried to find the Poleta folds, but I had failed to figure out in advance the best access point. Oops. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, when you’ve got big plans but not enough time to enact them with appropriate pre-planning. We had some happy exploration of the hills south of Route 168, though, and found tons of blocks of the Cambrian-aged …
7 March 2012
Scenes from last Sunday: Bishop Tuff and Volcanic Tableland, CA
Sunday was our first full day in the field. Here’s a few looks at my NOVA students doing geology out in eastern California. We spent the day on, and next to, the Volcanic Tableland north of Bishop, a massive stack of ash fall and ignimbrite deposits erupted from Long Valley Caldera 760,000 years ago: the Bishop Tuff. Climbing the southern edge of the Volcanic Tableland from the erosional valley of …
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.