Friday fold: Natural Bridge area, Yoho National Park
The Friday fold, delayed by a week from last week’s contest, appears in Yoho National Park, British Columbia, near the “Natural Bridge” over the Kicking Horse River.
Callan Bentley
Miette outcrop
Here’s a cool outcrop of the Neoproterozoic Miette Group. Most of the Miette is classified as “slate” and “gritstone,” through these particular exposures, on the Icefields Parkway south of Jasper, are fine-grained and lacking in slaty cleavage. They don’t seem to have been too metamorphosed at all right here, as Sebastian shows in this photo: … Read more
Guest post: Red Rock Canyon
A guest post by Callan’s student Jacob Douma Traveling with Callan Bentley and Pete Berquist through the Canadian Rockies on their Regional Geology Field Course in July 2012, we were exposed to a variety of physiographic features. Among them, was Red Rock Canyon located 16 km from Waterton Townsite within Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta. … Read more
Video book review: “Big Bang” by Simon Singh
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJNSw1XtU6c”] Here’s the link to the book on Amazon.
Paw Paw Tunnel GigaPans
A weekend expedition to GigaPan the C&O Canal’s singular Paw Paw Tunnel results in an exposition on Devonian sedimentation, Alleghanian mountain-building, structural geology, and the incision of the Potomac River to produce entrenched meanders.
What’s going on here?
Take a crack at it. I’ll discuss it in full tomorrow later. The blue thing is the handle of a dry-erase marker, to give you a sense of scale.
First day of class
Today is the first day of class for the fall semester at Northern Virginia Community College. For the first time in seven years, however, I won’t be in the classroom. For the 2012-13 academic year, I’ll be on sabbatical. Sabbatical is a magic word in my mind. It’s a brilliant idea to allow motivated professors … Read more
Glacial striations, in fact and fun
A few photos from the Canadian Rockies illustrated the characteristic “look” of glacial striations. Callan also demonstrates how they can be used for outright tomfoolery.
Morning with the local expert
Royal Tyrrell Museum geologist Dave Eberth donates time and expertise to help Callan’s students understand the Cretaceous-aged Horseshoe Canyon Formation in central Alberta.
Migmacatization
Evelyn put up a cat photo on Geokittehs earlier today, and it reminded me of anatexis, the process of partial melting. Anatexis is my favorite way to produce a migmatite. In this model, the light-colored (felsic) ginger cat is derived from the partial melting of another cat, partly dark (mafic) and partly felsic (ginger). Where … Read more
Friday fold: soft sed def in Kodiak
The Friday fold is a seaside outcrop of soft sediment deformation (not post-lithification tectonic deformation) on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
New macrobugs from the Bentley farm
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a “macrobug” photo. So here’s two for you: a harvestman (“daddy longlegs”), and a pelecinid wasp:
Guest post: Turtle Mountain and the infamous Frank Slide
A guest post by Nicholas Rossi, a student in Callan’s Canadian Rockies field course. Turtle Mountain is located in the Blairmore Range in Alberta Canada about 160km south of Calgary. It is the site of the Frank Slide, a landslide of over 90 million tons of rock that gave way on Turtle Mountain’s East side … Read more
Bearpaw bivalves
Cretaceous clams from the final big transgression of the Western Interior Seaway, the “Bearpaw Sea”: We saw these last month at Devil’s Coulee in southern Alberta. They’re big!
My new favorite pater noster lake photo
Photo by Stephen Smith Alderson / Carthew lakes / summit area, depending on who you ask. Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.
Class portrait at the Walcott Quarry
Here’s my crew from July’s Regional Field Geology of the Canadian Rockies course, checking out the Burgess Shale at the Walcott Quarry in Yoho National Park. A couple of the locals joined us for this portrait. Original photo courtesy of Stephen Smith, modified by CB
Friday fold: Kinked limestone laminae, Consolation Lakes
The Friday fold is a kink fold in thinly-laminated limestone from the same site as yesterday’s mysterious orange oncoids.
Orange oncolites from Consolation Lakes
Callan presents a mystery rock found in blocks of sedimentary rock on a talus slope near the Consolation Lakes in Banff National Park, Alberta. Are they orange oncolites? Or alien embryos? 🙂
Armored mud balls
Ever seen an armored mud ball? In this post, Callan encounters a small herd of these geological oddities in a coulee in southern Alberta.
What those geologists were looking at
Yesterday, I showed you a scene of geologists (including me) clustered around some (presumably interesting) outcrop. I asked what you thought we might be looking at. Howard Allen, a denizen of this part of the globe, immediately identified the scene as that of the downstream end of the Athabasca Glacier. Several people guessed that we … Read more