Callan Bentley Happy Friday – it’s the end of a very busy week for me, and I hope you too are looking forward to a fun and rejuvenating weekend. Here’s your Friday fold – like last week, a guest submission from Joe Kopera: Wowzers; that’s a looker! What are we looking at here? Joe writes: This photo … Read more
It’s Friday, so in search of an appropriate fold, Joe Kopera leads us to the top of New Hampshire’s Mt. Monadnock. Bonus: boudinage!
This is the second Andrea Wulf book I’ve read in the past month. It’s a biography of a great naturalist and popularizer of science and travel writing, who at the same time is largely forgotten in the modern English speaking world. Alexander von Humboldt’s intellectual impact is vast, Wulf argues, leading to everything from Darwin’s … Read more
I just finished an interesting book with a provocative title. How to Clone a Mammoth, by Beth Shapiro, is a readable, sober assessment of de-extinction, the idea of bringing back extinct species through a variety of techniques. She defines very clearly at the outset that the purpose of de-extinction is ecological – to restore critical … Read more
The British Geological Survey just came out with a new video on Siccar Point, featuring some excellent drone video of the site (in very good weather!). In addition to the unconformity, one of the things you will appreciate about the video is an excellent end-on view of a plunging synform exposed just above waterline: You’ll … Read more
I just finished this book, about the botanical and agricultural predilections of United States ‘founding fathers’ George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison. Three of these farmed and gardened in Virginia, one in Massachusetts. Some were federalists, others republicans who championed the rights of the states. Some were slave owners, others not. All … Read more
Happy Friday – sorry to have not shared any folds with you last week. I hope these beautiful folds in Catalina Island meta-cherts will make up for it: As with the previous couple of Friday folds, this image is courtesy of Sarah Penniston-Dorland (University of Maryland, College Park).
A couple of weeks ago, before a series of snowfalsl altered my daily work routine in a destabilizing way, I took a walk through the braided floodplain / gravel fan of Passage Creek, where it exits the Massanutten Mountain system near the state fish hatchery. There, no longer restrained by the steep walls of quartzite, … Read more
Probably the most important book I ever read was Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. It opened my eyes to a passionate, unapologetic way of living in the world, of embracing visceral experience of the natural world. It spoke to my heart in an authentic way, and changed my world view permanently. I was in college then. … Read more
Check this out: It’s a sample of the Reynolds Limestone, a member of the Mississippian-aged Mauch Chunk Formation, chock full of gastropod fossils. The image here is a 3D model made with Agisoft PhotoScan, a 3D model rendering program. The only input was a series of ~32 photos taken of the sample at various angles … Read more
I have a great book to recommend today – a book that takes a “Great Books” approach to tracking the advance of western science through history. The book is called, straightforwardly, The Story of Western Science. Its author is Susan Wise Bauer, who writes with a confident erudition and a clear, solid style. She surveys … Read more
Happy Friday! Here’s another fold from Catalina Island, California – an antiform in metasediments, courtesy of Sarah Penniston-Dorland of the University of Maryland:
While I’ve spent quality time in Ireland on previous trips, I’ve never been to Scotland. To me, it is terra incognita, and I am eager to explore it this summer. It was with delight then, that I delved into David Oldroyd’s The Highlands Controversy, which at once tickled many parts of my brain: the structural … Read more
My friend Sarah Penniston-Dorland, of the University of Maryland, supplied this week’s Friday fold. it comes from Catalina Island, California, where Sarah just wrapped up some field work with two of her students. All three of them have given me permission to post the images here: The Catalina Schist is a suite of subduction-related metamorphic … Read more
I’ve been doing some reading lately to get some foundational ideas established in my mind for my upcoming summer trip to Europe. This trip has three goals: (1) to gather key digital imagery (GigaPans, 360° photospheres, video) for curriculum to teach geoscience concepts and give students everywhere with particularly instructive geology in Iceland, Ireland, the … Read more
Here are some new “virtual samples” for you to check out: Dessication cracks in Tonoloway Formation (Silurian): Link Image by Callan Bentley Random conglomerate (unknown age and formation): Link Image by Robin Rohrback Skolithos trace fossils (tops) in Hampshire Formation (Devonian): Link Image by Callan Bentley Crinoid calyx fossil (unknown age and formation): Link Image … Read more
The geology east of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, is cool. It’s Blue Ridge rocks, from basement to the cover sequence, tilted to the west and broken and repeated by the Short Hill Fault. Here’s a look at a detail of the Geology of the Harpers Ferry quadrangle by Southworth and Brezinski (1996). So there’s a … Read more
There’s something about Arctic and Antarctic adventure that stirs my interest. The merciless but fascinating environment, the odd fauna, the endurance, The Endurance, the way human frailties pop out against the stark backdrop. Evidently novelist Rebecca Hunt is subject to the same entrancement. She was one of 18 artists and writers who participated in the … Read more
Today’s Friday fold comes from Martin Schmidt, who has shared a few previous folds with Mountain Beltway readers. It shows a folded ptygmatic vein from the Himalayas. Pretty sweet, amiright? Thanks, Martin. Happy Friday, all!
The week before the AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco experienced heavy rain and strong coastal wave action. These two phenomena liberated a big boulder of serpentinite on Marshall’s Beach. As it moved downhill, it opened up a scarp with views into the colluvial soil horizons.