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26 April 2019

Friday fold: Black Sands Beach

The Friday fold can be found in a boulder of gray chert layers on Black Sands Beach, at Marin Headlands in California.

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3 May 2017

Storm beaches have I loved

The answer to yesterday’s geo-puzzle is revealed to be a storm deposit of boulders, 20 m above sea level!

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9 March 2017

Lugworm casts on the beach, Islay

Who dwells beneath the sands of Islay? Lugworms do. These embedded annelids process the sediment for food, extruding the undigested sand in charismatic piles that adorn the beach of Loch Gruinart.

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2 March 2017

A virtual field trip to the Grind of the Navir

On the northwestern coast of the Northmavine Peninsula of Shetland, there is an unusual coastal landform: a gate-like entrance to an elevated amphitheater, like something out of Tolkien, and a storm beach of slab-like boulders inland of that.

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9 September 2016

Friday folds: A study in contrasts at the Walls Boundary Fault, Shetland

A virtual field trip to the Walls Boundary Fault in Shetland reveals an embarrassment of Friday fold riches.

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28 July 2016

Currents of air and water, deposition and erosion

Yesterday I showed you two scenes, depicted in two photos each, that I saw on the beach at Machir Bay, Islay, last week. I suggested that it might be fun to compare and contrast them. Scene #1 was this: Scene #2 was this: Scene #1 is a place where aeolian (wind) currents were at work. They appear to have stripped away some of the sand protecting these pebbles, and then …

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11 July 2016

Kilometer to millimeter: 4 GigaPans to zoom in on Lewisian gneiss

I’m in the North-West Highlands of Scotland, enjoying spectacular geology and less-than-spectacular weather. I’ve been fairly productive on the GigaPan front, regardless, nipping outdoors when the weather permits to shoot outcrops and landscapes. One set I’m particularly pleased with is this suite of four images. They show the Archean-aged Lewisian gneiss, the oldest rock unit in the North-West Highlands, as exposed on a beachside outcrop east of Durness, Sutherland. The …

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28 June 2016

“Dunbar marble” at Barns Ness, Scotland

Thanks to the website ScottishGeology.com, run by Angus Miller, I learned of Barns Ness, a Mississippian-aged limestone fossil site on the shore not far from where we are staying at Dunbar. We ventured out there on Saturday afternoon, in search of fossils. The presence of the Dunbar Cemenet Works nearby is an indication that this is the most extensive limestone outcrop in central Scotland. I set my field assistant loose …

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7 February 2014

Friday fold: Hartland Quay, Devon

I ran out of folds last December, I asked for help on Twitter. Laura Hamilton was among the first to respond, with a link to this image: @callanbentley Hartland Quay, Devon UK. Huuuuge chevron folds! pic.twitter.com/7bhRfLib9Y — lau.rah (@hammijam) December 23, 2013 Thanks, Laura, for another great image!

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17 January 2012

The ventifacts of Rooiels

Site of the mystery photo I posted over the weekend, the beach at Rooiels (“red grass” in Afrikaans), South Africa, is a lovely place… Located on the western side of False Bay a tad north of Cape Hangklip, Rooiels is somewhat famous in my mind because the Guru of Gigapan, Illah Nourbakhsh, spoke glowingly of it at the November 2010 Gigapixel Imaging for Science conference in Pittsburgh. When I finally …

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