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4 July 2012
Plane views: Powder River Basin and Black Hills
Happy fourth of July! Here’s two scenes that are emblematic of America, as seen from my airplane window last March flying from Reno to Minneapolis. Here’s the scene in the central Powder River Basin of eastern Wyoming: If you zoom in, you’ll see what caught my eye – regular rectangular excavations into the surface. These are strip mining operations for coal laid down in the Paleogene period of geologic time. …
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.