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3 September 2013
A new outcrop of Catoctin meta- volcanic breccia
Lily and I took our son to the Virginia Scottish Games on Sunday. This is an annual competition of events in traditionally Scottish feats – throwing heavy things, mainly. There is also fried food, whisky, and some terrific music. The event is held at the Great Meadow, south of The Plains, Virginia. I had never been there before – it’s a site often used for horsey sorts of events, and …
23 April 2013
Return to the Outdoor Lab
Two years ago, I took a trip to the Phoebe Hall Knipling Outdoor Lab, which is Arlington, Virginia’s outdoor education facility in the Pond Mountains (southern continuation of the Bull Run Mountains), on the eastern edge of the Blue Ridge geologic province. I was invited back last week to look at some new exposures. I brought the GigaPan along. There had been additional erosion on the saprolitic exposure of Harpers …
17 April 2013
Four new GigaPans from an intriguing contact
Callan and his colleague Jay Kaufman (University of Maryland) go to extraordinary lengths to document an intriguing block of rock in northern Virginia’s Blue Ridge province. Great images and a lot of fun result – but what do these rocks tell us?
5 April 2013
Two new GigaPans of Rockfish Gap, Virginia
I took a trip down to Charlottesville this week for a couple of meetings, and I made time along the way to capture two new GigaPans of the lovely exposures of Catoctin Formation greenstone at Rockfish Gap, where Interstate 64 traverses the Blue Ridge. This is very close to the southernmost tip of Shenandoah National Park, and at the northern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Catoctin is an …
12 March 2013
Five new GigaPans from Thoroughfare Gap
Yesterday, I took five new GigaPans at Thoroughfare Gap, a water gap where Broad Run cuts through Bull Run Mountain, the eastern limb of the Blue Ridge Anticlinorium at my latitude. The rocks here are the Cambrian-aged Chilhowee Group, with bedding tilted moderately to the east during Alleghanian mountain-building in the late Paleozoic. To the west is the crystalline core of this massive regional fold, and to the east is …
28 February 2013
Unconformity seen in the field yesterday
Callan and two colleagues find a “textbook” unconformity on a field trip in Virginia’s westernmost Blue Ridge.
18 February 2013
Scouting out the geology of Doukénie Winery
On Saturday, Lily and I went out for a date. It was only the second time since Baxter was born that we were able to get away for quality time, just the two of us. We headed up to Doukénie Winery near Hillsboro, Virginia. Here it is on a topographic map: Here’s what it looks like from the ground: In a couple of weeks, I’m giving a geology talk at …
8 February 2013
Friday fold: LIDAR view of the Weverton Formation along the Blue Ridge front
Dan Doctor of the US Geological Survey contributed this week’s Friday fold. It’s a lovely view of the asymmetric folds in the Cambrian-aged Weverton Formation (part of the Chilhowee Group, a Sauk-Sea passive margin transgressive sequence), exposed on the western flank of the western limb of the Blue Ridge Anticlinorium. It’s a LIDAR image, and it’s best viewed when draped over the scenery in a Google Earth view. Here’s a …
29 November 2012
Living in the Appalachian Forest, by Chris Bolgiano
Last week, I finished reading Living in the Appalachian Forest: True Tales of Sustainable Forestry, by Chris Bolgiano. It’s a grab-bag of stories from the forested mountains of the south-central Appalachians, ranging from Pennsylvania down to Kentucky and maybe Georgia, too. West Virginia and Virginia get the most attention. The driving question behind the book is: How should I manage my land? Since this is a key question in my …
28 October 2012
Geology and wine in northern Virginia, part I: the Blue Ridge
Callan attends the Geological Society of Washington’s fall field trip, examining the relationship between grape-growing and the underlying geology of two provinces in northern Virginia: the Blue Ridge and the Valley & Ridge. With GSW compatriots, Callan visits Hume Vineyards in the Blue Ridge basement complex and North Mountain Winery in the Shenandoah Valley. This is part I.
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.