Yesterday afternoon, I spent some time in the field with a colleague, a student, and a gigapan. I took four gigapan images, which are of varying quality due to the partly cloudy day, but still you ought to find them interesting to explore. You can see any of them full-screen by clicking on the word “GigaPan” in the lower right corner:
Antiform in Mather Gorge Formation, C&O Canal:
Folds and boudins and dikes in Mather Gorge Formation, C&O Canal:
“Maderia Point”, southernmost part of the Billy Goat Trail on the main channel of the river, looking south towards Madeira School (in McLean, Virginia). The confluence with Difficult Run can also be seen on the other side of the river:
Mather Gorge Formation, small peninsula on Potomac River, showing metamorphosed layers (relict bedding?) that has been boudinaged and partially melted:
Readers, if you don’t already have an account with gigapan.org, will you please get one? You see, if you do, then you can go into images like these and tag interesting parts of them by “taking a snapshot.” You can annotate your snapshot with commentary, and we can discuss the geology not only of the Billy Goat Trail, but anywhere in the world. It’s a rich conversation, given that it’s based on gigapixels and gigapixels of geologic imagery. And I’d love to hear specifically (down to the pixel) what you see in these images. What observations can you make that I missed? What mistakes did I make that you could point out? What stuff do you have questions about? Let’s “talk!”