You are browsing the archive for December 2013 - Page 2 of 3 - Mountain Beltway.
16 December 2013
Monday microbugs: Looking through my new AmScope
Recently, I bought a microscope for home use. This has been a longtime goal for me. I’ve dreamed of having my own microscope the way some guys fantasize about a Porsche 911. It’s an AmScope model, and it has an attachment for a small digital camera that comes with the scope. While the scope is lots of fun, though a little small, I’ll admit that I’m not too impressed with …
13 December 2013
Friday fold: Kink banding in Purcell limestones, Crypt Lake trail
Hiking up to Crypt Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada, you can see some sweet stromatolites, and folds, too. But it’s not only that – you can also find some decent kink bands in those strata, too! These kink bands will serve as our Friday fold, on this Crypt-Lake-o-centric week. Here’s a second, slightly more oblique shot: Have a great Friday!
12 December 2013
Some folds along the Crypt Lake trail
Hiking up to Crypt Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada, you can see some sweet stromatolites, We’ve already taken a look at the falls, but today, let’s zoom into the folds exposed in that shadowy cliff near the center… These limestone layers are Mesoproterozoic in age – they’re part of the Purcell (Belt) Supergroup. The folding likely dates to the late Cretaceous into early Paleogene “Laramide” Orogeny (as …
11 December 2013
Stromatolites along the trail to Crypt Lake
On the trail up to Crypt Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park (southernmost Alberta, Canada), there’s a ‘traditional’ hiking trail, and then an intense ledge on a glacial headwall that you must teeter along, including scaling your body up into and through a person-sized tunnel! Right at the transition between the two “phases” of the hike are some boulders of Mesoproterozoic Belt limestones (Helena/Siyeh Formation??) bearing many, many, many stromatolites. …
10 December 2013
The trail to Crypt Lake
Today, I’d like to share some images with you from Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada. This is the Crypt Lake hike, a popular (but grueling) hike in the park. It starts at the Waterton Marina, across Emerald Bay from the Prince of Wales Hotel. Mount Crandell and the Bear’s Hump are visible in the distance. This image can be made much bigger if you click on it. Click …
9 December 2013
Monday macrobug: mantis on the window screen
After yesterday’s 4+ inches of snow, I doubt we’ll be seeing a praying mantis this big again for the better part of ten months…
6 December 2013
Friday fold: Turtle Mountain and the Frank Slide
The Friday fold can be found this week at Turtle Mountain, Alberta, where it triggered a massive landslide.
5 December 2013
The Snoring Bird, by Bernd Heinrich
Some time ago, when I reviewed some books here, Thomas Hodgson left the suggestion that I might enjoy The Snoring Bird, by Bernd Heinrich. So I asked the library to order it, and they did, and as soon as it arrived, someone else checked it out. Then I got my turn, and today, when I returned it, it instantly got whisked off to another eager reader! Wow – a popular …
4 December 2013
The Smithsonian Castle and the Seneca Quarry, by Garrett Peck
The Smithsonian Castle is one of the most striking buildings on the National Mall in Washington, DC. One reason for this is its distinctive architecture, but a second reason is its color: a bright, deep red. This color comes from the rock from which the Castle constructed: the Triassic-aged “Seneca Sandstone,” a part of the formation technically known as the Manassas Sandstone. It is overlain by the Balls Bluff Siltstone, …
3 December 2013
El Paso geology via GigaPan
This spring, I traveled to west Texas to assist Joshua Villalobos of El Paso Community College in capturing a series of GigaPan images, in hopes of creating a comprehensive virtual field experience revealing that area’s spectacular geology. Since then, my student Robin Rohrback-Schiavone has been using our GIGAmacro photographic imaging system to make a series of hand-sample GigaPans to accompany the outcrop-scale images that Joshua and I made. The whole …
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.