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17 June 2012
Massanutten sketch
A sketch of the Massanutten Synclinorium is presented, made with a Wacom Cintiq stylus/monitor combination.
22 January 2012
Rheology of an overheated waterbottle (with stickers)
Last fall, when I was out backpacking in Dolly Sods, we left one of Lily’s water bottles on the dashboard of the locked (and windows-rolled-up) Subaru. When we got back to the car, we found it had experienced heterogeneous solid-state deformation. I took a few photos, so that those of you who are interested in rock deformation could ponder them as analogues for the contrasting styles of deformation we see …
10 July 2011
Cascade Canyon
Following up on Friday’s fold, I wanted to share a few other images from our hike last week in Cascade Canyon of Grand Teton National Park. Lots of cool exposures of Archean basement rock there. Folds in gneissic banding: Big, angular mafic blocks in a felsic soup: Swarm of granite dikes on a mountainside: Asymmetric feldspathic porphyroclast in amphibolite, with apparent reaction rim: Boudinage and an isoclinal fold: Ptygmatic fold: …
1 December 2010
The Konnarock Formation
A detailed description of one of the Virginia Blue Ridge’s most intriguing geologic formations: a maroon sedimentary sequence showing the advance of “Snowball Earth” glaciers in the Neoproterozoic.
12 September 2010
Scenes from a drill campaign
The past couple of days, I’ve been in the field, collecting samples with Dr. Fatim Hankard, a post-doctoral researcher from the University of Michigan, and Matt Domeier, a PhD candidate from that same fine school. We’re interested in using Virginia’s wealth of Catoctin formation feeder dikes to do paleomagnetism measurements that might help us constrain the latitude of Virginia during the emplacement of these dikes during the Neoproterozoic. More later …
26 August 2010
Field gear that I loved this summer
Here’s some stuff that I used this summer and found to be awesome and well worth investing in. MSR WindPro camp stove – Unlike most MSR isopro stoves, where the stove screws on top of the squat fuel canister, in this one, there is a little hose that connects the two, side by side. This means it’s MUCH more stable. Having a campstove that’s not tippy is super important — …
8 May 2010
Hand lens + iPhone → Macrocamera
Ever since I saw this at Microecos and Myrmecos, the staff here at “Mountainecos” have been wanting to try it out. Behold my first three iPhone photos supplemented by a hand lens (Belomo triplet, at a distance of about 1.5 cm from the subjects): That’s a trilobite and a penny, by the way. Try it out; post your results!
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.