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2 February 2022
Abundance, by Karen Lloyd
Callan reviews a new book about endangered species and ecosystem recovery in various parts of Europe.
16 February 2021
Deep Time Reckoning, by Vincent Ialenti
Stereotypically, I think of anthropologists as scholars who head off into years-long sojourns embedded with indigenous peoples, learning their cultures, practices, and insights. Vincent Ialenti has shown me that modern anthropologists can study other groups too. Ialenti’s population of interest is a modern group of European geoscientists, nuclear engineers, and planners. Together, they are charged with planning for the integrity of a Finnish nuclear waste repository. But studying this group, …
10 July 2020
Friday fold: Candigliano River, Italy
Reader Michael Hiteshaw spotted some amazing folds this week while watching Kayak Session TV on YouTube. Though there’s a dramatic arc of “saving” a deer, both Michael and I felt our eyes drawn to the canyon walls where there are gorgeous folds in several sizes and shapes, with an emphasis on chevron folds: The video description on YouTube reads: Fabulous action by whitewater kayaker Fabrizio “Gass” Capizzo who saved …
19 June 2020
Friday fold: Scaglia Rossa chevrons at Lago di Fiastra
My friend Alan Pitts is orchestrating a virtual field camp for George Mason University this summer, utilizing outcrops in central Italy’s Apennine Mountains. Here’s a 3D model he just posted of one of the most impressive outcrops there: the chevron folds in the Scaglia Rossa limestones at Lago di Fiastra. I featured the site as a Friday fold 3 years ago when Alan took me there in person, but this …
10 April 2020
Friday fold: Sorrosal Falls, Pyrenees
Folded Eocene turbidites exposed on the face of a spectacular waterfall in the Spanish Pyrenees. It’s Friday; enjoy this fold!
6 March 2020
Friday fold: an Extreme(adura) geological history question
The Friday folds are revealed in an elegant cross-section through fantastic rocks in the Extremadura region of Spain.
13 September 2019
Friday fold: crinkled schist from Italy
AGU’s Chief Digital Officer Jay Brodsky offers up a fresh European fold for you today — and this one is on rather a smaller scale than Jay’s last Friday fold contribution… Click through for a bigger version. These are lovely crinkly folds in highly foliated rocks. I love boxy little crenulations like these. Jay tells me that this is from Graines, Italy, in one of the valleys of the Val …
6 September 2019
Friday fold: Gonzen, Switzerland
Science writer Gabe Popkin shared two fold photos with me this week – both from near Sargans, Switzerland, adjacent to the Rhine River Valley and the border with Lichtenstein. The photos shows the mountain called Gonzen. There, Jurassic limestones crop out in a very wavy pattern: I don’t know the geology of this area in any kind of detail, but I decided to trace out a distinctive upper surface of …
24 May 2019
Friday fold: Riffelhorn (+xenolith)
Naomi Barshi shares this “deskcrop” Friday fold… Naomi says she found this fold: near the Riffelhorn, Gornergrat, above Zermatt, Switzerland. The sample has befriended my other show-off sample of a mantle xenolith from San Quintin, Baja California. Thanks for sharing, Naomi! The xenolith is a nice bonus!
8 March 2019
Friday fold: Dent de Morcles
The Friday fold is a recumbent anticline/syncline pair, deforming the K/Pg boundary in the Swiss Alps, as photographed from the air by Bernhard Edmaier.
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.