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5 August 2016
Friday fold: roadside in Ladismith/Kleinkaroo
Martin Schmidt again contributes a fold – this time from his summer trip to South Africa: Pretty great! This is part of the Cape Fold Belt. Perhaps some of you will drive by it when you go to the International Geological Congress in South Africa later this month! You can view the site in the context of Google Street view here. Thanks for sharing, Martin.
24 March 2016
Three new 3D rock sample models
Pahoehoe “ropes” on a basalt, sample site unknown: Archean gneiss from the Gallatin Range of Montana: Tafoni in Malmesbury Group turbidites, South Africa:
18 October 2013
Friday fold: Sliced BIF from Joburg
The Friday fold is a trio of hand samples of folded banded iron formation from South Africa. Collected in 2012 as float from the “contorted bed” outcrop in downtown Johannesburg, these samples are only now being cut and polished in the lab at NOVA.
19 June 2013
Dwyka Tillite in South Africa
My wonderfully named e-buddy Martin Bentley recently took a field trip to a quarry in South Africa (between Grahamstown and Fort Beaufort) where the Dwyka Formation is exposed: This poorly sorted sedimentary rock (a ‘diamictite’) is usually interpreted as glacial deposits (lithified till, or ’tillite’). Alfred Wegener cited these rocks and accompanying glacial striations (and similar ones in South Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica) as evidence for the existence of …
25 January 2013
Friday fold: Gansbaai
A small mountain inland of Gansbaai, South Africa (where one goes to cage-dive with great white sharks) shows some of the folding characteristic of the Cape Fold Belt. Let’s zoom in… A few bedding traces annotated, to ease your armchair fold-viewing experience. I think this is my final photo from South Africa… Wow. Only took me 1.05 years to get them all up on this blog. Next up: polishing off …
11 January 2013
Friday fold: Hoerikwaggo Trail 5
We wrap up our week-long odyssey along South Africa’s Hoerikwaggo Trail with a look at something we look at every Friday: folds! In this case, we’ll be examining folds in the bedding layers of the Table Mountain Sandstone.
10 January 2013
Hoerikwaggo Trail 4: fynbos vegetation
Callan continues his week-long recounting of his five-day backpacking trip from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, South Africa, along the Hoerikwaggo Trail. Today, we examine the ‘fynbos’ plants seen along the trail.
9 January 2013
Hoerikwaggo Trail 3: Joints, veins, and Liesegang banding
Callan continues his week-long recounting of his five-day backpacking trip from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, South Africa, along the Hoerikwaggo Trail. Today, we examine the jointing, oxidizing and reducing fluid flow, and the emplacement of ore veins.
8 January 2013
Hoerikwaggo Trail 2: the Table Mountain Sandstone
Callan continues his week-long recounting of his five-day backpacking trip from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, South Africa, along the Hoerikwaggo Trail. Today, we examine the Table Mountain Sandstone.
7 January 2013
Hoerikwaggo Trail 1: the hike
Callan begins a week-long recounting of his five-day backpacking trip from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, South Africa, along the Hoerikwaggo Trail. Today, we examine scenery and logistics of the trail.
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.