1 October 2013

New macro GigaPans of sedimentary rocks from the Massanutten Synclinorium

Posted by Callan Bentley

I have two new GigaPans of hand samples to share with you this morning…

The Edinburg Formation graptolites from Mint Spring, Virginia, that I featured here back in May, can now be explored in GIGAmacro hand sample:
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Students: are these colonial or solitary organisms? Benthic, nektonic, or planktonic? Does this relate to their usefulness as index fossils?

And here’s a graded bed from the Martinsburg Formation (Ordovician turbidites) exposed on the South Page Valley Road near Luray, Virginia:
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Which way is stratigraphic “up” in this sample? Use your understanding of the Bouma sequence to figure it out…

My student Robin Rohrback-Schiavone made these images; she and I will be discussing our work on the Mid-Atlantic Geo-Image Collection (M.A.G.I.C.) at the Geological Society of America meeting in October in Denver. If you’re at the GSA meeting too, please stop in and join us on the Digital Geology Express.