You are browsing the archive for October 2015 - Mountain Beltway.
30 October 2015
Friday fold: Himalayas, northern India
My colleague Martin Schmidt of the McDonogh School, who I know through the National Association of Geoscience Teachers eastern section, recently shared a bunch of fold photos with me. They have a “dated” feel because they were originally shot on slide film, but the folds themselves of course are timeless. I’ll be featuring a bunch of them here in the weeks to come. Here’s a scene Martin captured in northern …
29 October 2015
“Making North America,” episode 1: Origins
The PBS series NOVA has a three-part series coming out next week called “Making North America.” Hosted by the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, Kirk Johnson, the series will explore the tectonic assembly of terranes that resulted in the bedrock of the continent, the panoply of diverse creatures that have dwelled here in the past, and the human prehistory of our continent. I was given …
28 October 2015
Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I have mentioned that I’m on a year-long effort to diversify my reading list. There are so many great books to be consumed, and I’ve been spending far too much time with white, male authors. When I heard a few weeks ago that the new cadre of MacArthur fellows was announced, I read their biographies and thought about their work. Ta-Nehisi Coates was among them, and prominently mentioned in his …
27 October 2015
Corridor H virtual field experience
My Historical Geology class was in for a new experience for the semester’s capstone field trip. Before we headed out into the field (to the exceptional roadcuts along Corridor H in Grant and Hardy Counties, West Virginia), we had them examine all the outcrops virtually, in the comfort of the classroom, using digital imagery. I say “we” because this initiative was a collaboration with my colleague Alan Pitts, who developed …
26 October 2015
Tool marks, trace fossils, and flute casts from the Brallier Formation
Another gem from Saturday’s Historical Geology field trip: the bottom of a fine sandstone bed in the Devonian Brallier Formation, showing a variety of primary sedimentary structures, including tool marks, trace fossils, and several flute casts. Current flow direction here would have been from upper left toward lower right. Here’s a version of the photo with a few of these features highlighted:
25 October 2015
Cool fossils from the Clearville member of the Mahantango Formation
On Saturday, I took my historical geology class on their field trip out to Corridor H, West Virginia. We made a stop at the Mahantango Formation outcrop exposed on the eastbound exit ramp near Baker, and poked around there for fossils. These Devonian-aged siltstones are chock full of invertebrates including rugose corals, crinoids, articulate brachiopods, and even trilobites. Here are two of the best fossils we encountered there: A trilobite …
23 October 2015
Friday fold: Apennine phyllites
Another one from Samuele Jæger Papeschi: NE verging recumbent F2 folds in Paleozoic phyllites – Filladi di Buti fm., Punta Bianca, N. Apennines, Italy
21 October 2015
Seven new GigaPans from Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut
One of the cool things about my plan for the GEODE grant from NSF is to put GigaPan imaging systems in the hands of people who will take them to cool places. I purchased five loaner GigaPan rigs, and they have gone out in the field with various people, but I think that the images I will show you today are the coolest we’ve yet produced. All seven of them …
19 October 2015
The Martian, by Andy Weir
There’s a lot of talk about this book lately, since they just made it into what I’m told is a very good movie. I heard the scuttlebutt and watched the preview for the film, and when the protagonist/narrator said “I’m going to have to science the shit out of this,” I knew this was probably a story for me. I was lucky to score a copy of the audiobook from …
16 October 2015
Friday fold: recumbent folds in metapelites and metalimestones, Apennines, Italy
Anotehr one from Samuele Jæger Papeschi: Recumbent SW verging folds in alternating metalimestones and phyllites in the Metacalcari e Filladi formation, seen at Anisian, Punta Bianca, La Spezia, N. Apennines, Italy
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.