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20 May 2015
Liesegang banding in Pennsylvanian sandstones, Bolt Mountain, West Virginia
While out at the eastern section of NAGT’s annual meeting last weekend in West Virginia, I participated in a field trip to look at the stratigraphy of the Bolt Mountain section of Pottsville Group strata. One thing that was particularly eye-catching about the sandstones we saw was that many of them had been stained by rusty groundwater, producing the lovely stripey pattern known as Liesegang banding. Here are five examples: …
18 May 2015
Spheroidal weathering in sandstone
Here’s a nice example of spheroidal weathering in a sandstone, developed using orthogonal jointing and bedding: This is one of many sites I visited Saturday near Bolt, West Virginia, on a field trip with NAGT’s Eastern Section.
24 March 2015
Martinsburg Formation outcrops in Edinburg Gap
A report from the field: new outcrops of Ordovician-aged turbidites featuring geopetal indicators, fossil content, and a structural overprint imparted during Pangaea’s assembly.
20 March 2015
Friday fold: flexed turbidites
Spring is almost here! As you get ready for the equinox, enjoy this gentle fold on a Friday: These are turbidites (graywacke and shale) of the late Ordovician Martinsburg Formation, seen in Edinburg Gap, western Massanutten Range, greater Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Bedding is flexed very slightly here, from moderately-dipping to more steep, and then back to moderate again. Slickensides on the top of some exposed layers indicate the beds shifted …
27 January 2015
Miette Group gritstone showing scours, mudchip rip-ups, cross-bedding, and dropstones
The coarser strata of the Neoproterozoic Miette Group in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta record changing water current strength over time, and maybe an iceberg or two.
21 January 2015
Bloomsburg Formation in GigaPan
Three images, working our way in from outcrop setting to hand sample: link link link These fine red sandstones are the Silurian-aged Bloomsburg Formation, as it crops out in Fort Valley, Virginia. What would we see if we kept zooming in? …Stay tuned…
17 January 2015
Geology of the Acropolis (Athens, Greece)
When visiting Athens, Greece, you are drawn to the Parthenon’s grand architecture atop the hill called the Acropolis. But why is the Acropolis a hill?
16 January 2015
Friday fold: the Ross Sandstone, Ireland
Zoltán Sylvester has contributed today’s Friday fold, an anticline in the Ross Sandstone of Ireland: Click image to go to the source (full sized). Thanks Zoltán! Happy Friday everyone.
9 May 2014
Friday fold: knuckling under in the Mesilla Valley shale
Here’s a fold I saw in Texas, in the Mesilla Valley shale, close to the contact with the Muleros Andesite at Cristo Rey: This is a pretty wild looking fold. Let’s zoom in on the most deformed portion: Annotation: white is top of the distinctive, blocky, buckled bed, and black is its bottom side. Red shows brittle fractures in that same bed: Looks as if it rolled over on itself …
29 April 2014
A second look at the mass transport deposit on Corridor H
Remember this past winter when Alan Pitts and I found what we interpreted to be a mass transport deposit (a submarine landslide/slump) along the new section of Corridor H leading up the Allegheny front? Well, I was back out there yesterday, with Dan Doctor (USGS Reston) and Jay Kaufman (University of Maryland). One new thing we found was lots of weathered-out “ploudins” (pillows/boudins), many of which had a “sleigh” shape …