I got a call last month from Rebekah Wiedower, a landowner up in Frederick & Clarke counties (her family’s property includes pieces of both), inviting me to come up and look at some anticlines and synclines that Dan Doctor (USGS) had identified on the bank of Opequon Creek. I was glad to do it, though shooting these photos meant I had to wade across the stream in my sneakers (on a cold and windy December day).

Zooming in:

Another one, not as symmetrical, just upstream:

Here’s a look at the geological map of the area, via the USGS’s lovely new geologic map database map view:

Notice how much better the folds’ portraits look when the sun goes behind a cloud for a minute. The high contrast of the tree shadows and direct sunlight in the third shot is the reason these two GigaPans of these awesome rocks look less than stellar:

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I may have to go back and re-photograph them in more diffuse light…