12 June 2023 12:55 in joints, silurian, structure, stylolites, veins, west virginia by Callan Bentley
I spent yesterday on Corridor H in eastern West Virginia’s Valley & Ridge province. The rocks here are a mid- to upper-Paleozoic set of strata that record the switch from post-Taconian passive margin sedimentation into Acadian clastic deposition, and then everything is deformed by Alleghanian folding and thrusting. I found myself taking photographs of the same old outcrops I know and love there – but here’s something new that I …
13 November 2020 14:12 in folds, Friday Fold, limestone, silurian, valley and ridge, west virginia by Callan Bentley
A quick “Friday fold” that is expressed in three dimensions – “stairstep” style folds deforming a bed of Tonoloway Formation dolostone…
7 August 2020 12:02 in devonian, folds, Friday Fold, gigamacro, gigapan, limestone, structure, valley and ridge, west virginia by Callan Bentley
I went on a day of field work last week to Corridor H, West Virginia, to help make drone-based photogrammetric 3D models of the huge outcrops there. One site we stopped at is this beautiful V-shaped syncline in Devonian-aged Helderberg Group limestones. Click to enlarge Here are two layers traced out: Here is a GigaPan that Alan Pitts shot of this outcrop several years ago, when it was a bit …
18 October 2019 12:35 in cleavage, devonian, faults, folds, Friday Fold, paleozoic, valley and ridge, west virginia by Callan Bentley
TGIF! That’s my seven year old field assistant showing off the shape of a syncline in shale, siltstone, and fine sandstone of the Foreknobs Formation, a Devonian nearshore package of clastic sediment in the Valley & Ridge Province of eastern West Virginia. Want to see something freaky for Halloween? Photoshop can make it happen: Ewwww. Creepy! Another shot of the same fold, with a thick massive sand above a thicker …
29 September 2017 12:33 in devonian, faults, folds, fossils, Friday Fold, gigapan, microscopy, paleozoic, plants, primary structures, sediment, structure, valley and ridge, west virginia by Callan Bentley
The Friday folds are small soft-sediment deformational features within a dismembered, folded sandstone (a “ploudin”) from a mass transport deposit from the latest Devonian of West Virginia.
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5 June 2017 16:52 in 3D, primary structures, sandstone, sediment, shale, weathering by Callan Bentley
I’ve been busy making 3D models lately. Here are three ones united by a theme of being sand that was deposited relative to mud. In one case we have scouring to make flutes, in another case we have have localized sagging to make “ball & pillow” structures, and in the third case we have an extraordinary submarine landslide deposit. For two of them, the shale has been preferentially etched away, …
23 May 2017 11:57 in arthropods, fossils, GEODE, gigapan, paleozoic, primary structures, salt, silurian, valley and ridge, west virginia by Callan Bentley
Journey to the Silurian period in what is today the Valley & Ridge province of eastern West Virginia to see some exquisite sedimentary rocks that represent deposition in a very arid, very shallow setting.
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9 May 2017 23:49 in 3D, devonian, GEODE, gigapan, m.a.g.i.c., paleozoic, primary structures, sediment, valley and ridge, west virginia by Callan Bentley
The Foreknobs Formation is a Devonian unit in the Valley & Ridge province of the Mid-Atlantic Region. It was deposited in relatively shallow near-shore conditions during the Acadian Orogeny. On a field trip to Corridor H, a new highway transecting the West Virginian Valley & Ridge province on Monday, I stopped to document a couple of beds showing very nice ripple marks. These ones are symmetrical, and thus likely represent …
8 December 2016 18:54 in agu, coastal plain, fossils, GEODE, gigapan, m.a.g.i.c., mollusks, trace fossils, valley and ridge, virginia, weathering, west virginia by Callan Bentley
Two very different samples tell stories that are full of holes. What’s going on with this weathered sandstone? What’s going on with this fossil scallop shell?
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7 April 2016 12:15 in california, devonian, faults, fossils, GEODE, gigapan, limestone, m.a.g.i.c., mississippian (carboniferous), montana, plants, primary structures, sediment, south america by Callan Bentley
Another week, another batch of new images produced on my home-based Magnify2 imaging system from GIGAmacro. Leptaena brachiopod in (Mississippian?) limestone from Montana: Link Here’s the flip side of the same sample, with a lot of fenestrate bryozoans to see: Link Fault breccia from the Corona Heights Fault of San Francisco: Link Amygdular metabasalt from the western Sierra Nevada of California: Link Araucaria mirabilis gymnosperm cone fossil, from the Cerro …