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2 May 2014
Friday fauxld: Pennsylvanian plant fossil
Have a gander at this: Given that this is a Friday on Mountain Beltway, you might expect to see a fold here, and indeed, there’s something wavy and high-contrast running through the center of this sample. But that’s no fold. It’s a fossil plant! A “reed” of some kind, I guess. You can also see a small fern frond in the lower right. This is a sample of the Pennsylvanian-aged …
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 …
18 March 2014
On ignorance, bias, data, and the tentative nature of (scientific) interpretations
A young-Earth creationist reinterprets one of Callan’s blog posts in light of a Biblical flood. Callan responds with a demonstration of how new information can change a true scientist’s mind, but no amount of data can convince someone whose conclusions are based on faith rather than empirical data.
17 March 2014
Angle of repose in Devonian shale, Corridor H
Where the Needmore Formation is falling apart on Corridor H, sloughed-off shale is piling up in a tiny talus slope: You could slap a protractor on that photo and get a pretty good measurement of the angle of repose of this chippy, flaky granular material. Eyeballing it, that looks like about 45° to me.
6 March 2014
Puzzling over the Wallbridge Unconformity along Corridor H
The Wallbridge Unconformity is a surface of stratigraphic hiatus or erosion between the depositional influence of the Tippecanoe and Kaskaskia epeiric seas. After Alan Pitts and I located ourselves in the Oriskany Sandstone (terminal Tippecanoe stratum), we looked stratigraphically above the quartz sandstone for the overlying unit, which should be the Needmore Formation shale (beginning of the Kaskaskia sequence). Indeed, the quartz sandstone was overlain by a black shale at …
5 March 2014
Oriskany Formation quartz arenite and its fossils, Corridor H
Today, a few more photos from the field trip last month to Corridor H, the fine new superhighway with so little traffic out in eastern West Virginia. Our antepenultimate stop of the day was at an outcrop we inferred should hold the Oriskany Sandstone, a Devonian quartz arenite that lies stratigraphically above the Helderberg Group limestones and below the Needmore Shale. We were using Lynn Fichter’s indispensible stratigraphic column for …
28 February 2014
Friday fold: limestones of the Silurian, Corridor H
For the Friday fold, let’s journey back to the Silurian, as exposed in the limestones of that age that were deformed during Alleghanian mountain-building (Pennsylvanian and Permian), and exposed along Corridor H in eastern West Virginia. Some buckling (cuspate-lobate form) seen in that one… A little pop-up with hinge collapse: And, finally, as a digestif, consider this little morsel: That’s a bite-sized Friday fold. Have a good weekend!
27 February 2014
It’s not all fun & games on Corridor H
Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve been sharing some images here from a field trip the previous week to Corridor H in eastern West Virginia. I love this road, but I guess it’s fair for me to point out that sometimes in the middle of winter, this is what the outcrops look like: …Yep. Next road-cut, please.
26 February 2014
A fistful of fossils (Devonian Helderberg Group of West Virginia)
More images for you today from my field trip a few weeks ago to West Virginia’s bizarro highway Corridor H, a quiet place built for roaring traffic. Its multistory roadcuts are fresh and profound; they offer the most incredible views into the mid-to-late-Paleozoic surface of Earth… and the creatures that lived there. In the Devonian period, the Helderberg Group of limestones was deposited. It’s full of interesting fossils, the remains …
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 …
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.