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You are browsing the archive for May 2012 - Mountain Beltway.

31 May 2012

Plane views: Wyoming

I wanted to pick up where I left off months ago with some airplane photos as I was flying back from my California field class (over spring break). All views are to the north (out the left side of the airplane as we flew from Reno to Minneapolis). We crossed from northern Nevada into Wyoming, and started encountering Laramide uplifts. Here is a look at bedding dipping off to the …

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30 May 2012

Virginia geology on video: The Grenville Orogeny & the rifting of Rodinia

I’m playing around with Microsoft Expression screen capture for the book project I’m working on, and here is a video I worked up yesterday as a demonstration of this new way of telling a geologic story: The Grenville Orogeny and the rifting of Rodinia (opening of the Iapetus Ocean): [youtube=”www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6itZWD8bQc”] I’m frustrated by the way my voice keeps blowing out the microphone, and how often I say “um” and how …

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29 May 2012

Snowball students visit the University of Maryland

The final meeting of my spring semester Snowball Earth class was a field trip to the University of Maryland, hosted by Snowball guru Jay Kaufman, a specialist in chemostratigraphy using stable isotopes. Here, Jay welcomes the class to his wet lab: Doing chemostratigraphy takes lots of samples. Here’s a drawer full of samples from one of Jay’s many field areas: Then it was time for show and tell. Jay brought …

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27 May 2012

Critter backlog

I’m cleaning out my backlog of old photos. Here’s some small living things that I’ve taken pictures of in the relatively recent past… Let’s start with two butterflies in the Gallatin Range, Montana: Returning to Virginia, here’s a fuzzy little white moth: A crane fly is next… (M.A.G.I.C. has been churning out lots of crane fly fossil macro GigaPans lately, BTW). And lastly, a charming little red eft, a kind …

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25 May 2012

Friday fold: Pofadder shear zone

The Friday fold “guest fold” series continues with a folded ultramylonite from South Africa.

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24 May 2012

Swimming with great white sharks

This is Dyer Island, off Gansbaai, southern South Africa, a little west of Cape Agulhas: Those are seals, a huge, crazy crowded colony of Cape fur seals. They are loud. They create a God-awful stink with all their fishy excrement. It was like being in a BBC nature program to see this firsthand. I could hear David Attenborough’s voice in my head, raspy and accented: “Dyer Island, South Africa. Home …

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23 May 2012

Fossil Falls fun

A few shots from Fossil Falls, in the southern Owens Valley, California… This is the now-dry river bed of the Owens River. There’s abundant evidence of water-induced erosion (potholes, polishing, etc.), but nary a drop of water to be seen – Though this particular portion of the Owens River drainage dried up in the Pleistocene, it parallels the more recent history of the valley’s water resources, which are now being …

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22 May 2012

New GigaPans from the M.A.G.I.C. project

Team M.A.G.I.C. had a productive month. Here are some of our latest images: link link link link link link link

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21 May 2012

Up on Sulphur Mountain

Here’s the view riding up (or down) Sulphur Mountain, Banff, on the gondola: As you can probably tell from the cable lines’ misalignment, this was a composite (stitched) photo. Mt. Rundle is in the background. If you turn to the left, you can see Tunnel Mountain, south of the town of Banff: Tunnel Mountain is interesting on a couple of levels. To a glaciologist, it’s a roche moutonée — a …

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18 May 2012

Friday fold: Bedford Canyon Fm., California

Another guest submission for the Friday fold: Callan – Please find enclosed a collection of photos you could possibly use for a future Friday Fold blog post. The following photos were all taken by me on Sunday, April 29th, in the vicinity of Bedford Peak and the Maple Springs Trailhead (Silverado Canyon Road), Cleveland National Forest, Santa Ana Mountains, Orange County, California. The rocks shown are sandstones/meta-sandstones and shale/slate of …

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