Callan Bentley

Rumeli Hisarı

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Right after I got to Istanbul on this most recent trip, I took a taxi from my hotel down to the Bosphorus, to check out the Rumeli Hisarı, a fort complex built in 1452 by Sultan Mehmet the II in anticipation of the following year’s siege of Constantinople. It’s constructed at the narrowest point on … Read more

Lola, the cartoonist's companion

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted any photos of my supremely helpful cat Lola on the blog, so here you go: Lola loves to sit on paper, so when I break out the sketchbook to start working on my monthly cartoon for EARTH magazine, she sidles right up and stakes a claim. Fortunately, I … Read more

The word is out…

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Others have started announcing our move to a new blog consortium hosted by the American Geophysical Union, so I suppose I will go ahead and reveal that I, too, am part of this scientific cabal… Sometime before the end of the month, Mountain Beltway and six other top-notch earth and space science blogs will relocate … Read more

Photos from Virginia Geological Field Conference

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For the second year in a row, more exotic travel plans meant that I wasn’t able to attend the superb Virginia Geological Field Conference. I see that they have now posted some photos on the group’s Facebook page, so go check them out to see what we both missed last weekend. Here’s a taste: Sheared … Read more

Two xenoliths

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On my last day in Ankara Turkey (last Friday), I took the afternoon off from the Tectonic Crossroads conference in order to pay the requisite visit to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. I say “requisite” because Ankara’s not quite so thrilling a town as Istanbul, but this is the one location that everyone agrees is … Read more

Friday fold: multilayer buckle folding demo

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Check out this video I found online whilst uploading last week’s Friday fold: This video was produced and published on YouTube by Markus Beckers, Michael Ketterman, Dennis Laux and Janos Urai. It’s a nice demonstration of how multiple layers of material of different properties and different thicknesses can yield up different flavors of folds. In … Read more

Empires of the Sea, by Roger Crowley

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Note – I am wrıtıng thıs from Ankara, Turkey, where the Turkısh keyboard makes ıt very dıffıcult to type ‘i’ correctly — so please forgıve my decapıtated ‘ı’s… ___________________________ Today is the annıversary of the Battle of Lepanto, the fırst full-scale battle to take place at sea aboard armored ships. It strikes me as approprıate … Read more

Words' worth IV

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Back on the first incarnation of this blog, I occasionally posted about words that bugged me. A few more have piled up since then, so here we go with the latest consideration of “words’ worth”… First off, let’s consider the use of “outcrops” as a verb. This came up recently on this blog when commenter … Read more

Words’ worth IV

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Back on the first incarnation of this blog, I occasionally posted about words that bugged me. A few more have piled up since then, so here we go with the latest consideration of “words’ worth”… First off, let’s consider the use of “outcrops” as a verb. This came up recently on this blog when commenter … Read more

Speleothem microscopy: soot & aragonite

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My friend Dave Auldridge, formerly a structural geology student of mine at George Mason University, is now in grad school at the University of Alabama. Dave is working on an interesting project with speleothems: those drippy looking CaCO3 growths that you find in caves, like stalactites and stalagmites. He’s looking at these speleothems in order … Read more

Deducing my first anticline

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When I was done with my sophomore year at William & Mary, I embarked on a time-honored tradition among W&M geology majors: the Geology 310 Colorado Plateau field course. Jess alluded to this same course in her Magma Cum Laude contribution to this month’s Accretionary Wedge geology blog “carnival,” too. My version of Geology 310 … Read more

Friday fold: Siccar Point, Scotland

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As with last week, I’m going to show you someone else’s fold today. This one should have strong resonance with most geologists, because it’s a fold in the tilted (and contorted) older strata exposed below the famous unconformity at Siccar Point, Scotland: I found this image on the British Geological Survey’s online repository of images, … Read more

Building stones of the Haghia Sophia

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The Haghia Sophia (or “Ayasophia”) is an astounding building in old town Istanbul. It is an ancient cathedral turned mosque turned museum. Through all these incarnations, the Hagia Sophia has retained some features and had other ones added on: it is a palimpsest of architecture, symbology, and history. Walking through its soaring main chamber, or … Read more

EARTH: the biography, by the BBC

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Last week, I watched the BBC/National Geographic series “EARTH: The Biography,” hosted by Iain Stewart. Stewart is a charismatic host, with a thick Scottish accent that cannot disguise his enthusiasm for geology. The five episodes focus on: volcanoes, ice, oceans, atmosphere, and “rare planet.” Overall, I thought the series did an good job covering some … Read more