Pompeii vs. Herculaneum
Italy’s celebrated archaeological site of Pompeii is compared and contrasted with nearby Herculaneum in terms of art, architecture, visitor experience, and (of course) geology.
archaeology
Friday fold: Villa Romana di Casale
Okay, I’ll admit this is a bit of a stretch, but here’s your Friday fold: The mosaic-covered floor of this long hallway in the Villa Romana di Casale in central Sicily shows profound warping. The middle shadowed area sags downward by at least a meter, maybe more. It’s not a geological material that’s been deformed, … Read more
Friday folds: the Roman Forum
When in Rome, do Friday folds as the Romans do? Here are some images from my brief, sweltering visit to the Roman Forum(s) this past summer. The whole region is a jumblepile of ancient ruins in a thousand styles. Almost nothing is labeled. It looks like this: This particular building held up a bit better, … Read more
Building stones of the Acropolis (Athens, Greece)
As a follow-up to my post about the geology of the Acropolis klippe in Athens, Greece, and in the spirit of my post on the building stones of the Haghia Sophia in İstabul, Turkey, let’s turn our attention today to the various rocks that ancient Greeks used to construct the buildings of the Acropolis, such … Read more
Geology of the Acropolis (Athens, Greece)
When visiting Athens, Greece, you are drawn to the Parthenon’s grand architecture atop the hill called the Acropolis. But why is the Acropolis a hill?
Santorini ashfall and Akrotiri
Santorini is an island with nice exposures of the Tethyan subduction complex, yes. But did you know there’s also a volcano there? 🙂 Here’s a shot of some snorkelers, with a lovely stack of pyroclastics rising up behind them. Ash, lapilli, more ash — Santorini’s volcano has been very active over the years. This is … Read more
Stone tools of the Piney Branch quarry, DC
Archaeology meets geology in this visit to the Piney Branch valley of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. Cretaceous deposits of cobbles of Cambrian quartzite were quarried by Native Americans and modified into tools thanks to the fact that they break with a conchoidal fracture.
Vulture petroglyph from Castle Gardens, Wyoming
Happy new year! Time marches on – and here’s a reminder of times past… Check this out – a couple of what appear to be vultures, etched by native Americans into the siltstone at Castle Gardens, Wyoming: Diameter of the outer circle is probably 1.5 or 2 feet. My annotated (and generally embelished) version: I … Read more
Two Sisters
All this talk about footprints and tail traces, and I haven’t even shown you any “for sure” dinosaur fossils. Well, let’s remedy that today. We return now to the scene: exposures of the Jurassic Morrison Formation, on the east side of the Bighorn Basin, just north of Shell, Wyoming. I was wandering around, finding things … Read more
Pamukkale 4: Hierapolis
Atop the glorious pile of travertine that is Pamukkale (photos 1, 2, & 3), there is an ancient ruined city called Hierapolis. It was founded by the Romans in the second century BC, and was constructed (not surprisingly) from the most common locally available stone: travertine. A tomb with a view: This last one is … Read more
Capadoccia 6
I’ve got two more batches of Capadoccia photos for you. Sorry if you feel bored with this continuing series — but I think it was not only my favorite part of Turkey (and geomorphologically interesting) but photogenic too… So on our final day in Capadoccia, Lily and I took a hike up another valley. We … Read more
Capadoccia 5
So where did we leave off with the Capadoccia photos? I think we mentioned a hike, right? Here’s Lily buying orange juice from two boys who operated a refreshment stand in the middle of nowhere. There was a lot of good, fresh fruit in this dry land, a fact which surprised me. Here’s some apricots … Read more
Capadoccia 3
Callan shares some more images from last summer’s trip to Capadoccia, Turkey. Eroded turrets of ignimbrite served as dwellings for Byzantine-era Christians, who decorated them with distinctive art.
Extended tomb
This summer, strolling atop the massive travertine terraces of Pamukkale, Turkey, I checked out the necropolis (graveyard) of Hierapolis, an ancient city founded around 200 BCE and abandoned after an earthquake in 1534. One thing that caught my eye there was this tomb, built of travertine blocks.