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1 November 2013
Massanutten trip double-feature
As soon as I got back from GSA, I had to run two field trips, back to back. Both are the same trip: my Historical Geology field trip to the Massanutten Synclinorium. Here’s yesterday’s crew perched on a moderately-dipping slab of Massanutten Sandstone along Passage Creek: Today, it’s the same routine all over again, though the weather ain’t as purty… Here’s Friday’s group at one of the four Veach Gap …
28 August 2013
Guest post: The Huckleberry Ridge Tuff in the greater Yellowstone area
This is the third of several guest posts that will appear here this week, all written by students who participated in this past summer’s Regional Field Geology of the Northern Rocky Mountains course. by Matthew Mann University of Virginia The Huckleberry Ridge Tuff is a 2.1 Ma tuff deposit that is centrally located in Yellowstone (Figure 1), but can be found throughout much of the United States (Figure 2). The …
27 August 2013
Guest post: The Belt Supergroup in Glacier National Park
This is the second of several guest posts that will appear here this week, all written by students who participated in this past summer’s Regional Field Geology of the Northern Rocky Mountains course. by Cate Pearson University of Virginia A drive along Going-to-the-Sun Road is an amazing experience for many reasons. To any traveller, the stunning vistas and landscapes are breathtaking. To the more geologically inclined, a journey through Glacier …
26 August 2013
Guest Post: Glaciation in Glacier National Park
This is the first of several guest posts that will appear here this week, all written by students who participated in this past summer’s Regional Field Geology of the Northern Rocky Mountains course. by Madeleine Rushing Northern Virginia Community College Sedimentary deposition typically is seen as horizontal strata, layered one on top of the other with oldest deposits on the bottom, getting progressively younger with each layer. Which makes sense, …
14 July 2013
Rockies 5 concludes
My Rockies field course has wrapped up for another year – the fifth year in a row I’ve run this intermediate-level ‘regional field geology’ course in collaboration with Pete Berquist of Thomas Nelson Community College. We were fortunate to be joined by two other professional geologists this year: Chris Khourey of NOVA and Tom Biggs of the University of Virginia. It was a great group of students; no jerks among …
5 March 2013
Documenting doomed outcrops: Scientists’ Cliffs, Maryland
The community of Scientists’ Cliffs in Maryland is a private community that happens to sit on some of the most amazing fossil exposures in the Coastal Plain. The strata in question are part of the Miocene-aged (~14 Ma) Calvert Formation. The Scientists’ Cliffs outcrops are better than the more famous outcrops at Calvert Cliffs State Park, mainly because of easier access. At the park, you have to hike in a …
26 February 2013
Using M.A.G.I.C. to zoom in on trace fossils
Yesterday, I worked on my sabbatical project, the Mid-Atlantic Geo-Image Collection (M.A.G.I.C.). Whether I go outside on a given day to shoot GigaPans of local geology depends on multiple factors: (a) How’s the weather? (b) Do I have to watch Baxter? (c) Can I bring Baxter with me? (d) How are the lighting conditions? Yesterday everything lined up: nanny on duty, moderate temps, and high diffuse clouds that permitted a …
14 November 2012
Milestones
Callan reflects on major moments this week in his personal and professional lives.
22 August 2012
First day of class
Today is the first day of class for the fall semester at Northern Virginia Community College. For the first time in seven years, however, I won’t be in the classroom. For the 2012-13 academic year, I’ll be on sabbatical. Sabbatical is a magic word in my mind. It’s a brilliant idea to allow motivated professors to work on things they wouldn’t ordinarily get the time for, and to take time …
17 August 2012
Guest post: Turtle Mountain and the infamous Frank Slide
A guest post by Nicholas Rossi, a student in Callan’s Canadian Rockies field course. Turtle Mountain is located in the Blairmore Range in Alberta Canada about 160km south of Calgary. It is the site of the Frank Slide, a landslide of over 90 million tons of rock that gave way on Turtle Mountain’s East side and covered part of the small coal mining town of Frank in about 100 seconds! …
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.