20 January 2015 12:06 in archaeology, building stone, europe, greece, history, limestone, marble, metamorphism, weathering by Callan Bentley
As a follow-up to my post about the geology of the Acropolis klippe in Athens, Greece, and in the spirit of my post on the building stones of the Haghia Sophia in İstabul, Turkey, let’s turn our attention today to the various rocks that ancient Greeks used to construct the buildings of the Acropolis, such as the Parthenon. When we went to Greece in September, we didn’t just look at …
17 January 2015 21:43 in archaeology, europe, faults, greece, history, sandstone, satellite imagery, weathering by Callan Bentley
When visiting Athens, Greece, you are drawn to the Parthenon’s grand architecture atop the hill called the Acropolis. But why is the Acropolis a hill?
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22 September 2014 11:14 in coastal geomorphology, erosion, europe, greece, volcano by Callan Bentley
A series of blog posts on the geology of Santorini and Athens, Greece begins with a look at a sea arch on the south shore of Thera.
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2 February 2022 15:27 in birds, books, environmental, europe by Callan Bentley
Callan reviews a new book about endangered species and ecosystem recovery in various parts of Europe.
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1 June 2018 11:20 in folds, Friday Fold, sediment, structure by Callan Bentley
Marli Miller is a senior instructor at the University of Oregon. She is the author of Roadside Geology of Oregon and (with Darrel Cowan) Roadside Geology of Washington. She’s also a very talented geological photographer. She launched a website recently to showcase her work and make it available for instructors: Geology Pics. After chatting with Marli a bit in Flagstaff at the Rocky Mountain / Cordilleran section meetings of GSA …
26 September 2015 11:33 in books, food, history by Callan Bentley
This week’s book was a survey of human history, from the dawn of civilization to the Cold War, of the various ways that societal, health, political, technological, and economic factors drove the adoption of various beverages, and how the presence of those beverages in human society generated ripples of cause and effect, propelling advances and turns of history that led us to the world we live in. It’s a prime …
22 January 2015 14:59 in europe, volcano by Callan Bentley
One last post from my September trip to Greece. Here’s a look north along the inside wall of the central caldera of Santorini, taken from the deck of the Santos Winery. It’s not hard to imagine the volcanic edifice that filled the space to the left (west) prior to The Big One.
11 November 2014 11:11 in europe, greece, volcano by Callan Bentley
Here is the view north across the central caldera of Santorini, Greece: Click to enlarge to 9000 pixels wide This caldera formed during the Bronze Age, maybe as early as 1628 BCE or so, maybe as late as 1500 BCE. There are new volcanic islands rising in the center.
15 October 2014 11:22 in europe, greece, metamorphism, plate tectonics by Callan Bentley
As mentioned last week, I took a solo field trip north of Perissa, Santorini, Greece, in search of subducted rocks. The contact between the two main rock types (marble and schist) was prominent and visible from a great distance (see photos in previous post), but what was the nature of this contact? Did it represent conformable stratigraphy? Was it a fault? Here’s a closer look at the contact: In places, …
9 October 2014 12:50 in europe, google earth, greece, marble, metamorphism, plate tectonics, volcano by Callan Bentley
While in Santorini, Greece, your humble geoblogger braves a warm afternoon to search the hillsides for evidence of subduction.
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