Callan Bentley
2019 Yard List
New year’s day! For this blog and me, the first day of the year is time for the annual recap of birds seen on my land in Fort Valley, Virginia. Here are the previous iterations: 2012 (39 species) 2013 (51 species) 2014 (58 species) 2015 (65 species) 2016 (59 species) 2017 (56 species) 2018 (60 … Read more
Friday fold: blueschist & eclogite at Jenner, California
A pre-Fall Meeting field trip to the coast of northern California yields rare sights of garnet-bearing blueschist, plus eclogite, some pillow basalts, birds, waves, wind, and a lot of rain.
‘Streetcar 2 Subduction’ is live!
This week marks the launch of a new digital revision of a field guide to the geology of San Francisco, “Streetcar 2 Subduction.” Learn more here!
Friday fold: a secret Santa rock exchange gift!
I participated this year in the Secret Santa Rock Exchange, wherein I shipped out a mystery rock to a random person, and got back a mystery rock from another random person. What fun! My mystery rock has folds in it! It’s from Matt Bruseke at Kansas State University. Check it out: Matt writes that this … Read more
Friday fold: Noonday Dolomite in Mosaic Canyon
Because I’m putting together a field course for spring break 2020 to Death Valley California, I was looking through old Death Valley photos this week, from the last time I went to that special place. It was seven years ago! How time flies… This one is in Mosaic Canyon, and was taken by my student … Read more
Friday fold: two samples from Tennessee Tech
I spent some time in east central Tennessee last week, visiting the Earth Sciences department at Tennesee Technical University in their lovely newly-remodeled home on the main campus quad. In a hallway display case, they had many beautiful specimens on display to educate and inspire. Here are two lovely examples of folding. Terrific rocks to … Read more
The Overstory, by Richard Powers
This is an interesting novel. The book came highly recommended to me from two friends who have literary and environmental sensibilities that I respect, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction this year, which is an accolade worth noting – a validation of its quality. It is a story about trees, and about “radical” … Read more
Friday fold: Rist Canyon cobble
From a creek bed in northern Colorado, the Friday fold distorts foliation in early Proterozoic quartzofeldspathic gneiss, peppered with small almandine garnets.
Friday fold: Newfoundland beach cobble
This Friday’s fold is found in a metasedimentary beach cobble I found last summer in southeastern Newfoundland: A lovely little “pocket fold,” it came home with me and is among the handful of “deskcrops” I keep in my home office. Happy Friday and happy November!