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10 February 2023
Friday fold: Kelvin-Helmholtz waves in granite?
Reader Christian Gronau returns with another “guest Friday fold” submission. Christian writes, Greetings from a cold and wet west coast. A good time to root through old rock samples – and let the imagination run free … The little compilation below strikes me as visually compelling (both photographs are mine) – but how likely is it that the suggested analogy has any merit ? Would it have some …
6 August 2018
The Invention of Air, by Steven Johnson
This is an interesting book – simultaneously about Enlightenment science, energy flows driving human history, and the boundary-less conception of politics, religion, and science that was embraced by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the book’s principal protagonist, Joseph Priestley (and to a lesser, or at least less-well-documented, degree by John Adams). The discussion begins in the coffeehouses of 1760’s London, where conversation roamed freely and exuberantly between intellectuals and amateur …
15 August 2016
The Paps of Jura, with a nice example of orographic effect (plus a seal)
The isle of Jura in Scotland is where George Orwell wrote 1984. It’s just across a narrow channel from the eastern side of Islay, where I spent four lovely days geologizing this summer. Looking across the gap, you can see a cluster of prominent mountains on Jura. These are the “Paps” of Jura, and they are held up by quartzite. I took these photos when driving home after an afternoon …
29 April 2011
Friday fold: quirky quartz vein
This is a sample from the teaching collection at George Mason University: The swirly folds exhibited by this quartz vein reminds me of von Karman vortices. Happy Friday! For me, it’s the last day of classes of the spring semester at NOVA, though GMU is still in session for a couple more weeks. I’m grateful at the advent of warm weather, the sun, the promise of travel to western lands …
13 April 2011
The tricky business of SRM
Yesterday afternoon, I went to the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill to attend a briefing arranged by the American Meteorological Society on the topic of geoengineering as a response to climate change. The two speakers, Ken Caldeira and David Keith, argued that the U.S. should invest heavily in geoengineering research, so we can figure out what’s safe and what’s irresponsible before we actually make any decisions about which …
6 April 2010
Suess effect II: corals sing an isotopic song
Almost a year ago, on my old blog, I brought up the issue of the Suess effect. Go read that post if you don’t remember what the Suess effect is. If you want an executive summary, digest this: The burning of low-14C fossil fuels (because the fuels are old and the 14C has all decayed), lowers the total atmospheric ratio of 14C relative to other isotopes of carbon. The carbon …
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.