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1 February 2013
Friday fold: Mosaic Canyon Monster
While out in Death Valley with my Field Studies students last March, we encountered an extraordinary fold in Mosaic Canyon. Check this thing out: The rock is the Noonday Dolostone (“Noonday Dolomite” in mineralogically biased argot). It may be hard to make out what’s what there… So let me assist with a little annotation, tracing out the bedding: Wild, eh? That’s an extraordinarily messed up rock. “Goopey” is the adjective …
1 January 2013
Vulture petroglyph from Castle Gardens, Wyoming
Happy new year! Time marches on – and here’s a reminder of times past… Check this out – a couple of what appear to be vultures, etched by native Americans into the siltstone at Castle Gardens, Wyoming: Diameter of the outer circle is probably 1.5 or 2 feet. My annotated (and generally embelished) version: I love the “hunched” shoulders on these birds, and their expressionless faces. What’s the small inner …
15 October 2012
Midnight Rising, by Tony Horwitz
A couple of weeks ago, I was killing time down in Front Royal, and I spent a pleasant hour in the Royal Oak Bookshop. I saw a used paperback copy of Tony Horwitz’s classic Confederates in the Attic there, and bought it, thinking I could give it away to a friend or visitor who didn’t know anything about Civil War history. As I was checking out, the proprietress pointed out …
18 August 2012
Migmacatization
Evelyn put up a cat photo on Geokittehs earlier today, and it reminded me of anatexis, the process of partial melting. Anatexis is my favorite way to produce a migmatite. In this model, the light-colored (felsic) ginger cat is derived from the partial melting of another cat, partly dark (mafic) and partly felsic (ginger). Where the low-melting-temperature minerals have been extracted, the source cat is much darker. Fresh injections of …
2 July 2012
Where I’ll be next week
I’m headed off Saturday to the Canadian Rockies for two weeks. My colleague Pete Berquist and I are leading a regional field geology course up there. It’s a new gig for both of us, and I’m sure the trip will be quite a learning experience. As I was preparing for the trip today, I drew this cartoon to clarify in my mind the distinguishing characteristics of the three main physiographic …
17 June 2012
Massanutten sketch
A sketch of the Massanutten Synclinorium is presented, made with a Wacom Cintiq stylus/monitor combination.
12 May 2012
Ernst Cloos’ notes on the western Blue Ridge
Handwritten notes by Ernst Cloos (legendary structural geologist from Johns Hopkins University) on the area I visited last Monday on a field review of the new geologic map of the Elkton East quadrangle by Chelsea Jenkins, Chuck Bailey, Mary Cox and Grace Dawson.
13 March 2012
Elevation 10,000 feet
White Mountains, California. Photo (and animated GIF) by Filip Goc. A little silliness for your Tuesday morning.
8 February 2012
“Got migmatite?”
Had this brainstorm a few weeks back (or maybe months?). Been meaning to blog it up, but hadn’t gotten the chance to flesh it out. The geologic map of the Commonwealth comes from Chuck Bailey of William & Mary, who gave me permission to use it for this project. Anyhow – do you think there are enough Virginia geology nerds out there that I could sell these bumper stickers at …
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.