Callan Bentley Time for another virtual field trip on the Geologist’s Grand Tour of the United Kingdom: the most famous outcrop in the world. Today, we visit Siccar Point, Scotland. You’ve probably already seen photos of this place – they usually look something like this: To those who aren’t familiar, here’s what going on: There are two … Read more
Check out this sandstone cobble I saw at Barns Ness – it comes bearing gorgeous trace fossils. Can you spot them? Lens cap for scale in all these photos. The next three are close ups of the burrows from the previous image: Plus two more, from other cobbles I encountered::
Thanks to the website ScottishGeology.com, run by Angus Miller, I learned of Barns Ness, a Mississippian-aged limestone fossil site on the shore not far from where we are staying at Dunbar. We ventured out there on Saturday afternoon, in search of fossils. The presence of the Dunbar Cemenet Works nearby is an indication that this … Read more
Dunbar, Scotland, is a nice little seaside town that also happens to be the birthplace of the conservationist John Muir. My family and I have been based out of here this week on our European geological GigaPan expedition. But on our first morning, upon visiting Siccar Point (which is nearby), I threw out my back, … Read more
Some of planet Earth’s best examples of basaltic cooling columns are found at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. In this post, explore four different kinds of interactive digital media as a way of experiencing the Causeway virtually, from the comfort of your computer.
Same beach as the Cushedun conglomerate post earlier in the week – but here we see the schist into which the rhyolite dikes intruded: It’s been folded! Happy Friday. Hope your weekend is rejuvenative and fun.
We arrived at Old Bushmills at 4:06pm, and the last tour of the distillery for the day had left at 4:00. But all was not lost – We were delighted to see that the visitor center area was paved in slabs of shale with tremendously large, well-preserved trace fossils – sinuous burrows parallel to the … Read more
My GigaPan expedition has landed at Rathlin Island, north of Northern Ireland, within view of Scotland, for a few days. The beach on Church Bay is cobble-covered and steep, and the cobbles reflect the island’s geology, with some anthropogenic components thrown in for flavor: Link GigaPan by Callan Bentley But I was struck by these … Read more
At the opposite end of the beach at Cushendun, Northern Ireland, we found some outcrops of schist – I’ll be featuring some of them as Friday folds later this week. But cutting across the schist was a pink porphyry, with big well-formed potassium feldspars. I splashed some water from the Irish Sea onto it to … Read more
Want a geological irony? Here’s one! You’re looking at a rounded boulder of Cushendun Conglomerate, a Devonian “Old Red Sandstone” unit (Cross Slieve Group) exposed at Cushendun Caves, Northern Ireland, U.K. The irony lies in the repetition of history – a tumbling environment of high water energy, rounding cobbles and boulders and depositing them, in … Read more
I collected a photo set at the Giant’s Causeway to show the “textbook” examples of spheroidal (“onion skin”) weathering exposed on the road down to the causeway. My student Marissa Dudek used the photo set and Agisoft Photoscan to make a great 3D model of the site. She posted it on Sketchfab yesterday evening. Check … Read more
Two 3D models for you today, both produced by my student Marissa Dudek, using photo sets I gathered in Iceland: Photoscan model by Marissa Dudek (That one has paleomag holes drilled into it!) Photoscan model by Marissa Dudek (That one I’m particularly pleased with. Given the circumstances of image acquisition, this is a very good … Read more
While soaking at some fine outdoor hot springs in southern Iceland (near Höfn) last week, I spied a Friday fold on the rock wall above the hot pots: Iceland is not a place where we would expect to find ductile folds in already-lithified rocks, so I’m guessing that these are folds related to flow in … Read more
Last week, I was in Iceland, driving around the country’s Ring Road and checking out its amazing geology with my family. We had a great time in particular exploring in the Lake Mývatn region, on the country’s subaerial expression of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Lake Mývatn itself is in a rift basin, peppered with a great … Read more
There are some structural goodies here at the confluence of the Rapid River and the Salmon River in west-central Idaho. I visited these outcrops three weeks ago on a field trip after the Rocky Mountain section meeting of GSA. The rocks are the Lightning Creek Schist, a schist that’s part of the Wallowa Terrane, an … Read more
Today concludes a weeklong run of virtual samples. For the past five days, I’ve been presenting examples of a visualization combination that leverages the advantages of the GIGAmacro system with the 3D ‘virtual sample’ perspective of the Sketchfab-hosted model: the same sample presented in both formats. Today, we finish up with a stromatolite from the hypersaline … Read more
Our series of virtual samples continues! This week, I’m presenting examples of a visualization combination that leverages the advantages of the GIGAmacro system with the 3D ‘virtual sample’ perspective of the Sketchfab-hosted model: the same sample presented in both formats. Today, we feature a lovely slab of limestone, chock full of fossil material, and showing … Read more
Our series of virtual samples continues! This week, I’m presenting examples of a visualization combination that leverages the advantages of the GIGAmacro system with the 3D ‘virtual sample’ perspective of the Sketchfab-hosted model: the same sample presented in both formats. Today, we feature a differentially weathered dolostone. Link GIGAmacro by Callan Bentley Photoscan model by … Read more
Here’s another example of a visualization combination that leverages the advantages of the GIGAmacro system with the 3D ‘virtual sample’ perspective of the Sketchfab-hosted model: the same sample presented in both formats. In this case, it’s a lovely example of a conglomerate that I found in our lab at NOVA, showing variations in the level … Read more
Here’s a visualization combination that leverages the advantages of the GIGAmacro system with the 3D ‘virtual sample’ perspective of the Sketchfab-hosted model: the same sample presented in both formats. In this case, it’s a lovely example of cleavage refraction going from meta-clay-shale (now ‘slate’) through a graded bed of fine sand and silt. Link GIGAmacro … Read more