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16 December 2014
Buzzard Rocks
Back in 2011, when we were still living in D.C., Lily and I made a hiking trip out to Buzzard Rocks. It was a destination. Now that I live out here in the Fort Valley, I see Buzzard Rocks all the time, and I love it. It’s such a cool feature – a spot on the crest of the hill where you can see the slabby expression of steeply-dipping beds …
14 November 2014
Friday fold: GSW fall field trip
Last Saturday was the Geological Society of Washington’s fall field trip. Dan Doctor, Alan Pitts, and I led a team of ~20 geologists out to the great new exposures along Corridor H in West Virginia. Here’s the team in front of some of the parasitic anticlines and synclines that decorate the larger structure of the Patterson Creek Mountain Anticline: The strata here are Silurian-aged tidal flat carbonates of the Tonoloway …
13 November 2014
Gypsum casts? You be the judge — UPDATE: Syneresis cracks!
Silurian aged mud cracks feature small lensoidal features: are they casts of ancient gypsum crystals?
9 November 2014
Silurian mudcracks in cross-section
Spotted these cross-sectioned mudcracks yesterday on Corridor H, on the GSW fall field trip: They are in the Tonoloway Formation, a batch of tidal flat carbonates with lots of evidence of shallow arid conditions.
6 October 2014
Non-bedding-parallel stylolites in Tonoloway limestones, Corridor H
What can a little squiggle in a rock tell us? Stylolites in West Virginian limestone cut across the bedding plane, implying Alleghanian tectonic stresses.
25 June 2014
Pemaquid Point, Maine
Pemaquid Point, Maine, is a locally-owned and -managed park near an old lighthouse. I went there yesterday with my family. We’re on vacation in coastal Maine for a week. At Pemaquid Point, the action of waves have cleaned the rocks, and they offer a delightful three-dimensional look at Acadian-aged metamorphics and granite pegmatite dikes, with a fair amount of structural geology superimposed on the whole lot. Learn more about the …
5 June 2014
Palimpsest tales from a Silurian limestone
My favorite rocks are those that tell multiple stories – rocks that are “palimpsest” with subsequent “chapters” of their biography capable of being teased out, based on different features to be observed in the rock. Click to enlarge What can we see in this small sample of the Silurian-aged Tonoloway limestone, from Corridor H, West Virginia? To start with, it’s sedimentary, and stratified. There are multiple layers of fine-grained gray …
4 June 2014
Faults in the Tonoloway Formation, Corridor H
Here’s something fun: Click to enlarge Those strata are Silurian-aged Tonoloway Formation carbonates. There are plenty of dessication cracks to be seen, as well as salt casts, among the layers exposed. But more eye-catching at this distance is the faulting that disrupts the high-contrast layers… Both (apparent) normal and reverse faults can be seen in this road cut. Exciting stuff! We visited it two weeks ago on “Border to Beltway’s” …
25 February 2014
Carbonate mudcracks in cross-section (Tonoloway Formation)
While on Corridor H 2 weeks ago with Alan Pitts, we stopped astride the Patterson Creek Mountain Anticline, with extensive road cuts displaying Tonoloway Formation overlying Wills Creek Formation. We love this spot for its lovely folds and halite casts. See what I mean? link link This time, however, my eye was drawn to the prodigious quantities of mudcracks to be seen in side-view (that is, in cross-section). Take a …
24 February 2014
Halite casts (hoppers) from the Wills Creek / Tonoloway Formations in West Virginia
While we’re out on Corridor H, let me show you some new halite casts I found (either the Wills Creek Formation or the Tonoloway Formation): Salt casts are among my favorite primary structures. They speak very specifically to hypersaline depositional conditions.
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.