You are browsing the archive for May 2018 - Mountain Beltway.
25 May 2018
Friday fold: 3D model of intense folding
This is a block of rock I found in the rock garden at Northern Arizona University a few weeks ago: It’s intensely folded. Not sure what kind of rock it is, but it was quite dense.
18 May 2018
Friday fold: Corsican blueschist sheath fold
The Friday fold takes us to the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. Are you ready to dip into the blueschist facies in search of sheath folds?
13 May 2018
A Most Improbable Journey, by Walter Alvarez
As mentioned the week before last, Walter Alvarez has a new book out. I’ve read it. It’s good. It’s Alvarez’s take on what he calls “Big History” – the story that spans the cosmos, the Earth, life, and humanity. It’s pretty great for the reasons that Alvarez’s other books are excellent – his voice is calm, appreciative, and patient. His language is accessible and appropriate (though I will grouse that …
10 May 2018
Last Stand, by Michael Punke
A reader of this blog recently recommended Michael Punke’s Last Stand. I thoroughly enjoyed his novel The Revenant, and so last week I started the audiobook version of the nonfictional Last Stand (2007). Last Stand is subtitled “George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West.” Prior to reading it, I knew little of Grinnell, save that he was a conservationist, and that he …
7 May 2018
2/3 pass rate on determining geopetal “up”
A visual challenge via Twitter to determine stratigraphic younging direction ends with equivocal results. So let’s use GIGAmacro imagery to school your sedimentological students on how three primary sedimentary structures look different right-side-up versus up-side-down.
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.