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29 September 2014
Charnockite at Swift Run Gap
Over the weekend, I ran a 1-credit field course for NOVA, on the geology of Shenandoah National Park. I was about eight minutes early getting to the meet-up location, so that allowed me to check out a promising new outcrop of rock along the road (route 33, ~100 m west of Swift Run Gap). Here are two photos of it: charnockite (pyroxene-bearing granitoid or meta-granitoid), with weak foliation: This is …
12 August 2014
More Canadian Rockies student projects
In addition to the projects I linked to last week, here are a few more: Jessica H. made a Prezi about the Kananaskis Trail outcrops, with a bonus trip up to Peyto Lake. Sean D. made a PowerPoint tour of the sedimentary features we saw in the Great Plains. James focused on the Cougar Creek drainage’s damage during the 2013 floods and subsequent remediation. Finally, Josh D. explored the geological …
7 August 2014
A selection of “Canadian Rockies” field course final projects
I’ve got some student work to share with you today. Like yesterday’s guest post on deltas growing into Canadian Rockies glacial lakes, my Rockies students are turning in their final projects – digital products that aim to serve the world at large by introducing key places in the Canadian Rockies to a wider audience. The idea is to go from outcrop-scale observations to the larger context, to tell the interpretive …
28 May 2014
B2B Coastal Plain trip
Last week, the “Border to Beltway” field exchange team went to Dora Kelly Park in Alexandria, Virginia. There, a ravine reveals the boundary between the Coastal Plain and the underlying metamorphic rocks of the Piedmont… My NOVA colleague Ken Rasmussen joined us for the day, leading us deep below the soil profile to examine the basal nonconformity beneath our youngest geologic province: The ravine was dark, so the next few …
18 May 2014
B2B 2: the mid-Atlantic phase
Folks, I’m off to lead another field course – so don’t expect much on the blog this week. This is “phase 2” of the Border to Beltway community college field exchange program. In March, over spring break, I took a dozen NOVA students to Texas to team up with a dozen students from El Paso Community College, and now it’s payback time. Our EPCC collaborators are on their way to …
31 March 2014
Hunt’s Hole: Climbing ripples in volcanic surge deposits
Check out the immense climbing ripples preserved in surge deposits at Hunt’s Hole (a maar volcanic crater in southern New Mexico) and imagine the strong currents couples with an extraordinary amount of entrained pyroclastic material.
9 March 2014
Off to Texas
I just wanted to let readers know that posting will be light this week, as I’m down in Texas running my field exchange course with Joshua Villalobos of El Paso Community College. Joshua’s supplying 12 students, and so am I. Together with talented colleagues, we’re aiming to give these students, many of whom hail from traditionally-underrepresented groups within the geosciences, a world-class field experience that will take them from the …
12 February 2014
Fossil clams at Devil’s Coulee, Alberta
At the eroded gully known as Devil’s Coulee in Alberta, you can find armored mudballs, dinosaur fossils (including eggshell), and even marine clams at higher levels in the sequence. Check out these lovely beasts: They lived and died on the western shore of the Western Interior Seaway during the Cretaceous period of geologic time. My Canadian Rockies field geology students visited this site in 2012. I’m taking students back again …
21 November 2013
West Texas / NOVA field exchange in spring semester
Spring break field course: GOL 295 Regional Field Geology of west Texas: March 8 to 15, 2014, and Appalachian Geology: May 19-24, 2014. West Texas and southern New Mexico showcase tectonic, sedimentary, geomorphic, and volcanic features which provide world-class examples of geologic processes. Students in this course will travel to El Paso, TX, and complete field studies of locations in Carlsbad Caverns, the Rio Grande Rift, the Franklin and Guadalupe …
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.