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26 December 2013
Mississippian invertebrates from the Lodgepole Limestone
On a cold winter’s day, Callan harks back to a summer’s afternoon fossilizing in the Rocky Mountains. A few choice images of Mississippian-aged marine invertebrates are shared.
24 December 2013
Ichnology of a one-horse open sleigh
On my morning walk earlier in the month, I encountered this trackway: Those are percheron (big breed of horse) hoof-prints, and the tracks of an authentic one-horse open sleigh, like the one invoked in “Jingle Bells!” Our neighbor, Don Warlick of Secret Passage Ranch, brings the sleigh out for neighborhood fun when conditions are right… Photo by Paul Kosubinsky (Click to enlarge) We had a blast tootling around on it …
2 September 2013
Monday macrobug: Antlion pits
In areas of soil protected from the rain, we find antlion pits in our yard… These are traps, dug and maintained and occupied by the larvae of the family Myrmeleontidae. When a passing insect stumbles in, the antlion will throw sand grains and cause the hapless bug to tumble down, where the antlion snags it with a monstrous pair of jaws, and eats it. The adults look like your standard …
5 June 2013
Stone tools of the Piney Branch quarry, DC
Archaeology meets geology in this visit to the Piney Branch valley of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. Cretaceous deposits of cobbles of Cambrian quartzite were quarried by Native Americans and modified into tools thanks to the fact that they break with a conchoidal fracture.
6 May 2013
Brallier Formation 1: primary structures
Last week, I mentioned some geologizing with the family in the Staunton area. The furthest west we ventured was to the road connecting Deerfield, Virginia, with West Augusta. There, the Brallier Formation is well exposed in a dramatic roadcut. Explore it for yourself in this M.A.G.I.C. GigaPan: link The Brallier is turbidites, shed off the Acadian Orogeny during the Devonian, kind of like Martinsburg Formation is turbidites shed off the …
2 April 2013
GigaPan suite from the South Page Valley Martinsburg Outcrop
Are you into structure? Sedimentology? Stratigraphy? Well, I’ve got some good news for you – I’ve imaged several key outcrops on the newly-discovered (to me) roadcut on South Page Valley Road, showcasing the middle Martinsburg Formation turbidites (and their Alleghanian structural overprint). link link link link link link See if you can find: an anticline a syncline a fault a trace fossil a tool mark a graded bed cleavage refraction …
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 …
6 February 2013
Dinosaur footprints in west Texas
Everything’s bigger in Texas, even the footprints…
15 January 2013
Ripples in the sand
All seen last March in Death Valley, at Mesquite Dunes…. within ten minutes of one another.
2 January 2013
Upturned Paleozoic strata on Highway 16, Bighorns, Wyoming
Here’s a terrific outcrop to start off the new year at Mountain Beltway. We’re back in the Bighorns of Wyoming here, on highway 16, traversing the southern portion of the range en route from Buffalo to South Pass City. Click to enlarge Annotated, expanded, and Easter-egg-embedded: Click to enlarge From a different perspective (uphill a tad, looking north), consider this GigaPan I shot at the time: link The best part …
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.