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22 March 2012
Plane views
Here are some photos out the window of my flight home from California the week before last… Snow on the north sides of mountains, but not on the south sides (view is from the south towards the north): Same thing here: And again… And again… it would appear that our route from Reno to Minneapolis had us routed over the northern hemisphere! Variation on the same theme: light-colored sand deposits …
6 March 2012
Plane views
Some views from the airplane, over southern Wyoming (first two photos) and north-central Nevada (last four), last Saturday morning… A canyon: …and zooming in to the middle area of the previous photo: Strata upwarped into a structural dome (that has been “planed off” to be topographically horizontal, revealing a bull’s-eye-shaped outcrop pattern, then differentially weathered and highlighted by snow: Salt flat (playa lake + playa) in the Basin & Range …
19 February 2012
Plane views
A few scenes out the left side of the airplane from when I flew from El Paso to Houston a week and a half ago… Sand dune field overprinting desert vegetation and human roadways: Outcrop pattern of horizontal strata (tracing out the contours of this hill), and the weird geometry of human road systems: More contour-hugging outcrops of horizontal strata, and a vertical joint set: Same thing: Bajada (apron of …
26 August 2011
Friday fold: epic Greenland coast
The Friday fold is a beautiful straight-limbed antiform from coastal Greenland, courtesy of photographer Alistair Knock. Check it out and see if you can find anything that Callan didn’t annotate.
8 August 2011
Climbing Darton Peak
Callan embarks on an exhausting climb of a major summit in the Wyoming Bighorn mountains, a peak named in tribute of one of his geological heroes. Come join the trek to the top of Darton Peak!
30 July 2011
Alluvial fan at Emerald Lake, B.C.
On my hike to the Burgess Shale earlier this week, we encountered some great geology as well as paleontology. For instance, consider this rather epic alluvial fan, spilling out of the Presidential Range to the northwest of Fossil Ridge and Mount Burgess, and rapidly filling the Emerald Lake basin. Here’s a Google Map link to the location.
6 April 2011
Mount Washington 5: glacial features & views
Busy days here in DC and northern Virginia… Blogging time has been limited. A few more shots from this past summer’s time at Mount Washington, to fill the void… Prius atop mountain: The Great Gulf: Hikers in relatively warm weather: Another look down the Great Gulf: Glacial cobble of diorite, exotic to the top of the Presidential Range, and therefore icily transported there from a distant source. Mount Jefferson, as …
28 March 2011
A glacial delta complex in western Pennsylvania
A week ago Saturday, my three Honors students and I went on a field trip led by Gary Fleeger of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey, to examine some cool glacial features in western Pennsylvania. The trip was associated with the joint meeting of the northeastern & north-central sections of the Geological Society of America, held in Pittsburgh. My favorite part of the trip was examining a glacial delta complex near Jacksville, …
6 December 2010
Gerede segment of the North Anatolian Fault
The author recounts a field trip in October along the section of Turkey’s North Anatolian Fault that last ruptured in 1944. The rock types on either side of the fault are compared, offset markers are illustrated, and several types of landforms particular to strike-slip faults are shown. The post concludes with an examination of the town of Gerede itself, which is built directly atop the fault.
27 September 2010
Deducing my first anticline
When I was done with my sophomore year at William & Mary, I embarked on a time-honored tradition among W&M geology majors: the Geology 310 Colorado Plateau field course. Jess alluded to this same course in her Magma Cum Laude contribution to this month’s Accretionary Wedge geology blog “carnival,” too. My version of Geology 310 was led by the legendary Gerald Johnson (a.k.a. “Dr J”), a dynamic and enthusiastic educator …
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.