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1 April 2013
“Outcrops” on the barn at Peirce Mill, DC
The Friday before last, I was in DC for a fun geology/botany field trip, and I got the opportunity to stroll around the barn at historic Peirce Mill, a historical grain mill along Rock Creek in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC. The barn is immediately south of Tilden Street NW. It appears to have been constructed from local stone: metamorphic rocks of the Rock Creek Shear Zone, a ductile fault …
4 January 2013
Friday fold: Up on Opequon Creek
I got a call last month from Rebekah Wiedower, a landowner up in Frederick & Clarke counties (her family’s property includes pieces of both), inviting me to come up and look at some anticlines and synclines that Dan Doctor (USGS) had identified on the bank of Opequon Creek. I was glad to do it, though shooting these photos meant I had to wade across the stream in my sneakers (on …
7 July 2012
Structures seen at Floe Lake
A showcase of geologic structures observed between downpours of rain at Floe Lake, Kootenay National Park, British Columbia. Cleavage, bedding, folds, faults, and strain are all presented for the discerning structural reader’s edification and titillation.
2 May 2012
Veins perpendicular to foliation
To recap the week so far here on Mountain Beltway: On Monday we looked at some sweet vertical boudinage along the plane of tectonic cleavage (not to mention those folds in a (formerly) horizontal granite dike, now bearing vertical axial planes), and then on Tuesday we looked at a horizontal cut through that same outcrop, and it showed moderately distorted lava pillows, And now today, let’s look at one more …
30 April 2012
Exquisite boudinage in Ontario
Callan shares images of extraordinary boudinage outcrops in strained Archean meta-basalts on the Quetico-Wabigoon subprovince boundary within the southern Superior Craton. Ogle these gorgeous structures in awe and wonder.
11 April 2012
Blue Ridge Thrust Fault field trip
One of Callan’s former students leads a field trip to examine the western edge of the Blue Ridge geologic province, attempting to answer the question of whether the Blue Ridge / Valley & Ridge contact is indeed the trace of a thrust fault. Breccias and S-C fabrics tell part of the story…
18 January 2012
Two new macro GigaPans
With my new “macrogigapan” rig from Four Chambers Studio, I produced these images last week as part of my Mid-Atlantic Geo-Image Collection project (M.A.G.I.C.). … Dive in! Porphyritic andesite from the Beartooth Plateau, Montana: Foliated limestone slate, location unknown: Clicking on the word “GigaPan” in the lower right corner will take you to a fuller-screen view.
17 November 2011
Shear zone in basement complex
Callan visits a new outcrop of highly-sheared rocks in the basement complex of Virginia’s Blue Ridge province.
10 November 2011
Shear bands in the Grassy Portage Sill
Continuing now with the discussion of my pre-GSA meeting field trip to examine the structural geology of the Quetico-Wabigoon subprovince boundary within the Superior Craton of southern Ontario, Canada. Our penultimate stop on the second day of the trip was a roadcut exposing the gabbro of the Grassy Portage Sill. This is what it looks like: …Except where it doesn’t. In places, it looks like this, instead: Zooming in a …
17 June 2011
Friday fold: a granite dike
This Friday, I give you a fold from the shores of the Rockfish River, south of Charlottesville, in Virginia’s Blue Ridge basement complex, and just down the road from the Lawhorne Mill High Strain Zone. The fold distorts (and improves) a felsic dike cutting the darker granite of the basement. You can make this (stitched composite) picture bigger by clicking it: Here’s the texture of the dike granite: Here’s the …
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.