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5 March 2011
Buzzard Rock
Took a hike this morning with my bride-to-be, out to Buzzard Rock on the northeastern corner of Massanutten Mountain. There, we observed numerous boulders of Massanutten Sandstone float, many bearing charismatic cross-beds. Here’s one more slab of float, presumably weathered out along the main bed, showing gorgeous internal cross-stratification: A closer look at the left side of this sample, animated via GIF: Why animated? Because I can. The object of …
31 January 2011
Accretionary Wedge #30: the Bake Sale
The 30th edition of the “Accretionary Wedge” blog carnival is hosted at Mountain Beltway. A delectable array of foods, mainly dessert, are displayed. The treats demonstrate a wide array of geologic processes. Eat, drink, and be geologic!
26 January 2011
The making of Baker’s Quarry
So here’s how I made that cake I showed you Monday. Step 1: Collect the necessary ingredients: (Nice job with the stitching, Photoshop… jeez!) Step 2: Clear your schedule and start baking. My first layer was to be “the basement complex” and so I wanted something marbled in appearance. Mixing chocolate-powder-stained batter with regular yellow batter was the method, and I threw chocolate chips into the mafic batter and “white …
24 January 2011
East wall of Baker’s Quarry
Callan showcases his contribution to this month’s Accretionary Wedge blog carnival. The theme of the Wedge is “Bake Sale,” and Callan shows a cake he “discovered,” describing its geologic origin in detail. This would be tongue in cheek, except that his mouth is already full of dessert.
15 January 2011
Snowy detachment
I think snow can act as a nice analogue for larger-scale rock deformation. I explored this a bit last February, and I was reminded of it again last week, when I walked to my car one morning and saw this: Notice how the slab of snow on the hood (“bonnet” for British readers) of my Prius has slid en masse down”hill,” leaving the top portion of the hood bare of …
8 October 2010
Friday fold: multilayer buckle folding demo
Check out this video I found online whilst uploading last week’s Friday fold: This video was produced and published on YouTube by Markus Beckers, Michael Ketterman, Dennis Laux and Janos Urai. It’s a nice demonstration of how multiple layers of material of different properties and different thicknesses can yield up different flavors of folds. In the movie, there are two materials present: white silicone and gray foam. The silicone layers …
8 September 2010
Lessons from a broken bottle
Whilst hiking at Dolly Sods over the weekend, I found this old artifact: Upper 10 is apparently a “Sprite”-esque lemon-lime soda, discontinued in America but still being marketed abroad. But that wasn’t what got me jazzed, of course. Look more closely… That is a lovely little conchoidal fracture, and it’s so exquisite because it preserves not only the concentric “ribs” that are typical of conchoidal fractures, but also delicate little …
9 June 2010
What does Callan see here?
Tell me why I took this iPhone picture, and I’ll mail you a GEOLOGY ROCKS bumper sticker! Answer in the comments below…
6 June 2010
Uniformitarian
Heat-stressed map of the Chesapeake Bay / Washington, DC region, as seen at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Looks like mudcracks, eh? Similar stresses; similar strains.
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.