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8 March 2019
Friday fold: Dent de Morcles
The Friday fold is a recumbent anticline/syncline pair, deforming the K/Pg boundary in the Swiss Alps, as photographed from the air by Bernhard Edmaier.
14 September 2018
Friday fold: Ferruginous sediments in Barberton Mountain Land
A trip back to Archean sedimentary rocks in Barberton, South Africa, reveals a few folds on the roadside…
5 June 2018
Cross-bedding in Archean komatiitic ash deposits
Cross-bedding isn’t just for modern sedimentary deposits; you can find it in truly ancient ash deposits too! Let’s head to South Africa and take a look.
20 April 2018
Friday fold: Isoclinal in Damaraland
A guest Friday fold from Graham Andrews of West Virginia University: Graham describes this as an almost along axis view of a huge isocline in the Damaraland belt, Namibia Thanks for sharing! And a happy Friday to all.
23 February 2018
Friday fold: some Google Earth views of Namibia
We return today to the scene of last week’s Friday fold, for it turns out that you can see some additional awesome folds from outer space (via Google Earth). Do not adjust your monitor: these patterns mean show up a stark and wavy reality!
21 February 2018
Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
Trevor Noah is a South African stand-up comedian who rocketed into American awareness when he was selected as the successor to Jon Stewart as the host of Comedy Central’s news program The Daily Show. This book is Noah’s autobiography of growing up in South Africa, at first under apartheid, and then in the new post-apartheid era. It is the best account I’ve read of the institutional and cultural structure of …
16 February 2018
Friday fold: Zerrissene turbidite system, Namibia
The University of Maryland’s Jay Kaufman makes our Friday fold happen by sharing some images of folds from the Zerrissene turbidite system of northwestern Namibia.
2 November 2017
Weathering in komatiite
This morning on Twitter I was reminded of komatiites, those “extinct” ultramafic lavas that were relatively common eruptions during the Archean. I’ve actually got a good number of komatiite photos to share from my time last year in South Africa’s Barberton Greenstone Belt. But since time is short this morning, I’ll start with a short photo set of three images, all showing different aspects of how these ultramafic rocks weather …
25 May 2017
Chert-slab conglomerate from the Fig Tree Group, Barberton
Deep in the Archean, things suddenly got violent in the deep water of the Mapepe Formation’s oceanic setting. What was a quiet precipitation of chert suddenly was torn apart and tumbled downslope. Was an earthquake to blame? A bolide impact? This is the result.
1 May 2017
Accretionary lapilli from Archean volcanic eruptions
Volcanic “hailstones” called accretionary lapilli rained down on South Africa 3 billion years ago, and have survived to be seen in the present day, along the R40 road through Barberton Mountain Land, near the Bulembu border crossing into Swaziland.
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.