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18 June 2012
My new commute
Callan describes the geology along his new commute from the Fort Valley east to the Annandale campus of NOVA. The driving route traverses the Valley & Ridge, Blue Ridge, and Piedmont provinces, including the Culpeper Basin, and stops just shy of the Coastal Plain.
17 June 2012
Massanutten sketch
A sketch of the Massanutten Synclinorium is presented, made with a Wacom Cintiq stylus/monitor combination.
15 June 2012
Friday fold: home
Wow! Is it Friday already? Time flies when you’re settling into your dream house. The Friday fold is of my new home, the doubly-plunging Massanutten Synclinorium: The Alleghanian Orogeny is responsible for deforming these strata. Differential weathering produced the valley/mountain/valley pattern. The Cambro-Ordovician limestones and flysch (shale + graywacke) of the Martinsburg Formation in the Shenandoah and Page Valleys are susceptible to erosion, while the ridges of Massanutten Mountain are …
11 June 2012
Moving
This morning, I sold my condominium in Washington, D.C., and tomorrow Lily & I buy this place: Posting’s potentially going to be kind of light this week as we sort through the move.
8 June 2012
Friday fold: Brienz, Switzerland
Today’s fold comes to us from the Alps, courtesy of blog reader “Earth Mama.” She says: Attached is a photo of the outcrop, near Brienz, Switzerland, and a GE screenshot of the location. I saw this as I was looking out the train window, and was able to grab my camera in time. Best I could find is that the formations are dated to the Mesozoic (http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/talbot/cdgeol/Structure/Fold/Folds1/Recumbent.html). First off, the …
7 June 2012
Plane views: Flatlands edition
More photos from the flight from Reno to Minneapolis in March. The photos in today’s post come from the air above the Dakotas and Minnesota. First up: a series showing the intersection of natural patterns (presumably related to ground moraine) and the palimpsest geometric regularity of anthropogenic designs: Are these kettles? A close up look at one frozen lake, gleaming like a jewel in this dun landscape: Next, consider this …
6 June 2012
Virginia geology on video: the Alleghanian Orogeny
Here’s another video, wherein I’ve made some improvements from the last one (reserved the lower right corner for the webcam “talking head” video inset, and adjusted the microphone for fewer audio blowouts). It’s still not perfect – there’s a disconnect between the audio and the webcam video that becomes more and more pronounced throughout the course of the video, but it’s a step in the right direction. The Alleghanian Orogeny: …
5 June 2012
A clutch of amygdules
Callan presents a collection of well-exposed amygdules, seen along the Dark Hollow Falls trail in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. These white dots on a green background are the signatures of (1) Iapetan rifting, and (2) Alleghanian metamorphism.
4 June 2012
Weekend critters from Shenandoah National Park
My penchant for macro photographer of small animals continues unabated. Here are some images from Saturday and Sunday along Skyline Drive and the Whiteoak Canyon / Cedar Run loop in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia: A fly with a hairy back of golden iridescence. Compare it to this one: Very similar in some regards, but check out the size differences in the eyes, and the abdomen… Perhaps this is a case …
1 June 2012
Friday fold: Hoh Hoh Hoh
Another guest submission for the Friday fold – this is becoming a major trend! Peter Selkin‘s student Rick Schwartz loaned us this one. Peter describes the outcrop this way: The rocks here are Miocene turbidites of the Hoh lithic assemblage (sometimes called the “Hoh Terrane”) exposed at Beach #4 on the Pacific coast of the Olympic Peninsula. The train of folds here appears to be related to propagation 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.