Advertisement

You are browsing the archive for November 2015 - Mountain Beltway.

30 November 2015

Slump in progress on Corridor H

I was out on Corridor H last week, looking at rocks with my Honors student, and on the way back from the field work, I noticed this: Click to enlarge That’s a fresh slump scarp running across a slope that is gradually sliding downhill. (The left half of the image is moving down relative to the right.) To judge from the rip-rap-filled culverts, this slope must have a previously-documented history …

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>


23 November 2015

Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson

At first, I thought the titular Seveneves referred to fragments of the Moon. It blows up on the first page of the novel – or disaggregates anyhow, into seven big chunks. But these start knocking into one another, breaking off smaller pieces, and these bang into each other, making more pieces. Soon, there are a lot of pieces. Spoilers galore follow, as I feel obligated to outline the scope of …

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>


20 November 2015

Friday fold: recumbent limestones of coastal Grosseto

Samuele Jæger Papeschi not only provided this week’s Friday fold, but he also serves as its sense of scale: According to Samuele, these are: folded metalimestones in Punta delle Rocchette, Grosseto. This are pretty interesting transected folds, showing about 10 degrees of foliation dip in respect to their axis Thanks for sharing, Samuele, and happy Friday, all!

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


19 November 2015

A little geologic history before breakfast

What geological stories can be read from the stone on the front of a building? Walking past some facing stone in Baltimore, Callan discovers a wealth of little clues.

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


18 November 2015

Beach sand of coastal Maine

You could use a macro GigaPan of some pretty sand, I think. Link That’s sand from near Acadia National Park, in Maine. Exploring it, you can find both small chunks of Acadian granite, and green rods that are sea urchin spines. It’s fun – check it out.

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


17 November 2015

Hitting a nerve with popular posts

I blog here a few times a week, when I can manage it. Mostly I focus on new things I discover on field trips, advances in geologic imagery, and structural geology.  I get about 500 readers per day. But occasionally I write about other things, like creationism or current events disasters like earthquakes, and those posts garner a lot more attention. They get shared and reshared and spread out. My …

Read More >>

3 Comments/Trackbacks >>


16 November 2015

“Making North America,” episode 3: Human

The PBS series NOVA has a new three-part series called “Making North America” that premiered two weeks ago. Hosted by the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, Kirk Johnson, the series explores 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 …

Read More >>

1 Comment/Trackback >>


13 November 2015

Friday fold: chevron-folded chert

Samuele Jæger Papeschi is the source for today’s fold: Those are: chevron-folds in radiolarian cherts – Jurassic radiolariti fm. – Quercianella – Leghorn, Italy Cool. They look a lot like the chevron-folded cherts near San Francisco. Same age, too.

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


12 November 2015

Dialing in 5 GPa on a diamond anvil cell

On a visit to the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, Callan contemplates a diamond anvil cell and with a small adjustment changes the pressure by an extraordinary amount.

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>


9 November 2015

The final days of sub-400 ppm carbon dioxide

This is probably the last week our planet’s atmosphere will have less than 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide. When are we going to stop letting this heat-trapping waste gas pile up in our home?

Read More >>

No Comments/Trackbacks >>