You are browsing the archive for June 2012 - Mountain Beltway.
29 June 2012
Friday fold: Franciscan chert in Golden Gate Park
This week, the Friday fold comes to us courtesy of fellow AGU-hosted geoblogger Jessica Ball: That’s chert cropping out in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Maybe you should check it out in December when you’re in the Bay area for the AGU Fall Meeting? Outcrop location: Lat/Long: 37.771517,-122.4777. Annotated version: Recall there are more chert folds from the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge featured here. Thanks for sharing, …
28 June 2012
Thunderbird rhyolite
Have you ever seen a black rhyolite? Neither had geoblogger Callan Bentley – until he went to the Franklin Mountains of West Texas.
27 June 2012
Permian fusulinids from west Texas
Today, I’m going to show you some monster-sized single-celled organisms: giant fusulinid forams from the western flank of the Franklin Mountains in west Texas, beyond El Paso. I saw these critters in February when I went on a field trip there led by Josh Villalobos of El Paso Community College. Here’s the scene where we found these fossils (view is west towards New Mexico): To prepare you to check out …
26 June 2012
Leopard rock of the Yaak
After our “pre-honeymoon” sojourn to the Canadian Rockies last summer, Lily and I returned to the U.S. via Porthill, and then drove over to a place I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time: Yaak, Montana. Yaak (or “the Yaak“) is way up in the Kootenai National Forest, in way-way-way-northwesternmost Montana. We camped out nearby, and then in the morning, we rolled into “town,” and had breakfast (“make your …
25 June 2012
Leopard rock
Callan shares some photos of “leopard rock” (porphyritic mafic dikes) seen along the Beartooth Highway, northeast of Yellowstone National Park.
23 June 2012
Walking to the mailbox
It’s a mile downhill from our new place to the mailbox on Fort Valley Road. It’s a nice little walk that my wife and I do. A neighbor has a mowed path along the edges of his property, and sometimes we take that route back up the hill. It allows my wife to visit with some horses along the way – she often brings them apples, so they really like …
22 June 2012
Friday fold: an asymmetric anticline from Wyoming
Another landform seen out the window of that very productive photo-flight last March: That’s a breached plunging anticline – doubtless a Laramide structure. This was over Wyoming; I think here. Looking north-ish, along the axis of the fold: Note that the lengths of section line A and B are not equal: this anticline is asymmetric. The facing direction of the hogbacks on the left (west) indicate it’s not overturned, but …
21 June 2012
Plane views: “Is that the Tetons?”
Another batch of out-the-airplane window photos from March, on my flight from Reno, NV, to Minneapolis, MN. I looked out the window and saw a form that seemed familiar…. A slightly higher-contrast exposure: I was focused on that asymmetric mountain range in the distance. Is that the Tetons? And Jackson Hole to their east? I think it is! Zooming completely in with the pixelated “digital zoom” on the camera… Sure …
20 June 2012
Pebble Creek memories
This summer is the first summer in half a decade that I won’t be spending time camping at Pebble Creek campground, in the Lamar Valley of northeastern Yellowstone (“America’s Serengeti”). While I’m very excited to be nesting and exploring my new home in the Fort Valley, it does make me a bit wistful to think I won’t be waking up to see this lovely sight this year: That’s morning light …
19 June 2012
101 American Geo-Sites You’ve Gotta See, by Albert B. Dickas
I just finished reading 101 American Geo-Sites You’ve Gotta See, one of the latest publications by geology-friendly (and Missoula-based) Mountain Press. I’m grateful to the the publishers for sending me a review copy. It’s a nicely written and produced book highlighting sites across the United States of America of geological interest. The book is organized in a series of two-page spreads. On the left is a one-page write-up of the …
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.