The American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting begins this weekend in my hometown of Washington, D.C.

To prepare for the influx of geoscience-oriented visitors to our region, my colleagues and I have prepared a number of field trips and introductory articles about our local four-dimensional landscape. The Mid-Atlantic region has a tremendous variety of different geological stories to tell, revealed in the rocks of several closely-packed geological provinces, as shown in this lovely cross-section by Kat Cantner:

In collaboration with the Geological Society of America and the Geological Society of Washington, I helped organize a three-day field trip transecting the Appalachian mountain belt, but unfortunately we got the word out too late to garner many registrants, and it was cancelled. Fortunately, there are several other trips with less of a time commitment, that AGU attendees should consider taking advantage of.

Only have time to read an article, perhaps on your flight or train ride into town? My NOVA colleague Ken Rasmussen and I wrote the cover story in this month’s EARTH Magazine, “Touring the Capital Geology of Washington, D.C.,” which covers the basis of the rocks of the Piedmont / Coastal Plain interface as well as stories locked in the building stones of the National Mall area. There’s a lot to discover there, and this final version of the piece is half the length of the article we submitted! (Thank goodness for editors!)

Many of the same sites were shared with AGU’s Lily Strelich, who put out this awesome “Self-Guided Tour of the Geology in D.C. Buildings” (with accompanying Google Map) in this week’s EOS.

Enjoy these resources, and enjoy visiting Washington, D.C. I hope to see/meet some of you at the Fall Meeting.