Callan Bentley Back in the fall, we saw a lot of sexy scenes among the stick insects on our land. Everywhere, it seemed, the smaller males were searching out larger females, and put gametes together to make the little zygotes that would grow into the next generation of these extraordinarily well-camouflaged insects… Here’s a pair on the … Read more
The laccolith of Cristo Rey, at the Chihuahua / Texas / New Mexico triple point, is host to some cool geology. It’s cored by the Campus Andesite (47 Ma, Eocene) but surrounding the intrusion are a slew of sedimentary rocks, include the Turitella-bearing limestones of the Buda Formation and the shales and sandstones of the … Read more
It’s time to bring you up to date on some of the latest imagery produced by the Mid-Atlantic Geo-Image Collection. All of the following images were constructed by my student Robin Rohrback-Schiavone, on the GIGAmacro photographic imaging system in our lab… Several of the Precambrian samples came to us on loan from Jay Kaufman of … Read more
I took a walk through my neighborhood on a cold morning last week. I saw some neat features in the ice. Here’s a frozen backswamp next to Passage Creek (which lies in the tall trees just beyond the snow-covered natural levee… My neighbors (on whose land this backswamp can be found) had driven an ATV … Read more
Recently, I bought a microscope for home use. This has been a longtime goal for me. I’ve dreamed of having my own microscope the way some guys fantasize about a Porsche 911. It’s an AmScope model, and it has an attachment for a small digital camera that comes with the scope. While the scope is … Read more
Hiking up to Crypt Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada, you can see some sweet stromatolites, and folds, too. But it’s not only that – you can also find some decent kink bands in those strata, too! These kink bands will serve as our Friday fold, on this Crypt-Lake-o-centric week. Here’s a second, … Read more
Hiking up to Crypt Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada, you can see some sweet stromatolites, We’ve already taken a look at the falls, but today, let’s zoom into the folds exposed in that shadowy cliff near the center… These limestone layers are Mesoproterozoic in age – they’re part of the Purcell (Belt) … Read more
On the trail up to Crypt Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park (southernmost Alberta, Canada), there’s a ‘traditional’ hiking trail, and then an intense ledge on a glacial headwall that you must teeter along, including scaling your body up into and through a person-sized tunnel! Right at the transition between the two “phases” of the … Read more
Today, I’d like to share some images with you from Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada. This is the Crypt Lake hike, a popular (but grueling) hike in the park. It starts at the Waterton Marina, across Emerald Bay from the Prince of Wales Hotel. Mount Crandell and the Bear’s Hump are visible in … Read more
After yesterday’s 4+ inches of snow, I doubt we’ll be seeing a praying mantis this big again for the better part of ten months…
The Friday fold can be found this week at Turtle Mountain, Alberta, where it triggered a massive landslide.
Some time ago, when I reviewed some books here, Thomas Hodgson left the suggestion that I might enjoy The Snoring Bird, by Bernd Heinrich. So I asked the library to order it, and they did, and as soon as it arrived, someone else checked it out. Then I got my turn, and today, when I … Read more
The Smithsonian Castle is one of the most striking buildings on the National Mall in Washington, DC. One reason for this is its distinctive architecture, but a second reason is its color: a bright, deep red. This color comes from the rock from which the Castle constructed: the Triassic-aged “Seneca Sandstone,” a part of the … Read more
This spring, I traveled to west Texas to assist Joshua Villalobos of El Paso Community College in capturing a series of GigaPan images, in hopes of creating a comprehensive virtual field experience revealing that area’s spectacular geology. Since then, my student Robin Rohrback-Schiavone has been using our GIGAmacro photographic imaging system to make a series … Read more
Today, a few spiders that live in cylindrical webs of their own construction… Exhibit A, the grass spider, although this one’s not in the grass: Exhibit B, an unidentified spider on one of my exterior lights: Creepy! Crawly! Tubular!
Another week, another audio book. In this case, it didn’t even take a day – the two and a half hours of philosophizing lectures from celebrated physicist and oddball Richard Feynman make excellent listening. One of the reasons it works so well, I think, is that the material was originally delivered as a series of … Read more
Last month, I led a fun new tour for the Smithsonian Associates: an all-day tour of the geology of Virginia wine country. Wine-making is a bigger-and-bigger business in Virginia these days, and I’ve been exploring it on and off over the past few years, ever since participating on a wine-themed geology field trip through the … Read more
We were out on the deck the other day when Baxter spotted a wheel bug. He can say “bug” now, and this was such an occasion. The kid’s a chip off the ol’ block! He has a good eye for the bugs.
Here’s a sample that my Physical Geology students see on their field trip to the Billy Goat Trail:
Spring break field course: GOL 295 Regional Field Geology of west Texas: March 8 to 15, 2014, and Appalachian Geology: May 19-24, 2014. West Texas and southern New Mexico showcase tectonic, sedimentary, geomorphic, and volcanic features which provide world-class examples of geologic processes. Students in this course will travel to El Paso, TX, and complete … Read more