Callan Bentley My mother-in-law collected a cool oyster for me: She found it down in Ecuador; I think on the beach. She says it’s a fossil, but I haven’t been able to identify it at all, as either ancient or modern. Anyone know?
I was hoping for some more exciting wildlife than this… Three tufted titmice – Not what I was shooting for. Instead, I was hoping to catch sight of what I initially inferred must be a flying squirrel nesting under the eaves of the house. But I guess not – must just be a mouse in … Read more
This very short narrative (hardly even a proper “book” in the modern sense of the word) is by the survivor of a wretched ordeal, as the title suggests, off the coast of Newfoundland in 1908. I consumed the audiobook version, as a free download from my public library, and finished it in a single day’s … Read more
Good Monday to you! Here’s a crab spider, perched on a threaded screw that’s part of a baby gate on our porch: A closer look: I like crab spiders. As with jumping spiders, I don’t find them especially heebie-jeebie-inducing.
A guest post today for the Friday fold from my former student Naseem Naghdi, who’s now in southern California: The Ventura Avenue anticline is a fault-propogated fold and is located in the core of (Conoco’s) San Miguelito oil field, which is on the Ventura-Rincon anticlinorium. Carbon dating of seashells have indicated that the terraces range … Read more
The week before last, I finished a fun adventure novel, The Road to Samarcand. This is the first book I’ve read by Patrick O’Brian that’s not part of his epic (21 books!) Aubrey-Maturin series. I chose it because it was available as a (free) download from my public library, which meant I could “read” it … Read more
No, that blog post title is not a dig at the goons on Capitol Hill. It’s apparently the proper term for a group of salamanders. We’ve been seeing a lot of them lately ’round these parts. Take a look… Red-backed salamander: Unidentified black salamander: Red eft: Another one of the unidentified black salamanders, with little … Read more
Monarch butterflies aren’t the only insects that like visiting milkweed…
I got word yesterday that the fisher, a medium-sized mustelid (Like a marten, an animal that I’ve seen once up in the Adirondacks of New York), has begun re-colonizing wild parts of Virginia. This is pretty exciting news – a friend from high school shared the image below with me: That’s from a wildlife camera … Read more
The Friday fold is a cast-off specimen from the USGS. A lovely little orphan, its marble and micaceous layers have polished up nicely. Two sides of the sample are presented here.
I had a conversation the other day with a former undergraduate student (now two years past the acquisition of a B.S.) who was considering graduate school. I shared some advice with the student, emboldened by the fact that previous students I’ve shared it with said it was very useful and helped clarify their thinking. And … Read more
Check out the scene at Natural Bridge in Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada: Don’t confuse this “Natural Bridge” with the one in Virginia. Here, in the western Canadian Rockies, the structural geology is much better. You may recall that I’ve previously featured outcrops from nearby this site as a Friday fold. It’s a great … Read more
Last week on the flight to and from Denver, I consumed (via audio book, freely downloaded from my public library system) the 2004 microhistory Coal: A Human History, by Barbara Freese. It’s light on the geology, and heavy on the historical implications of coal. As with many of these sorts of books, it’s basically a … Read more
The Monday macrobug is a juvenile beetle with an odd means of locomotion.
At the GSA booth of Kansas State University, they had some nice specimens of rock on display. Here’s an example of a fold that caught my eye: rhyolite (flow banding, I presume) from the Owyhee Mountains: According to the gentleman manning the booth, the sample belongs to Dr. Matt Brueske. Happy Friday!
As soon as I got back from GSA, I had to run two field trips, back to back. Both are the same trip: my Historical Geology field trip to the Massanutten Synclinorium. Here’s yesterday’s crew perched on a moderately-dipping slab of Massanutten Sandstone along Passage Creek: Today, it’s the same routine all over again, though … Read more
One thing I got out of reading (listening to) Atlantic, by Simon Winchester, was a recommendation to read a classic story of adventure: Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World. As you might suspect, it’s an account of Slocum’s solo trip sailing his small boat, the Spray, around the world. He was the first person … Read more
These annual meetings of the Geological Society of America seem to fly by faster and faster. I’ve found that, through the years and as my career has developed, that I have less and less time for attending talks or contemplating research presented on posters. Instead, I spend my time sharing my own work, supporting students, … Read more
Here’s a recently hatched clutch of stinkbug eggs seen in September on a houseplant that we let live out on the porch for several months: The cute little bugs there are juvenile brown marmorated stinkbugs.