Friday fold: Kelvin-Helmholtz waves in granite?

Reader Christian Gronau returns with another “guest Friday fold” submission. Christian writes, Greetings from a cold and wet west coast.   A good time to root through old rock samples   –  and let the imagination run free …  The little compilation below strikes me as visually compelling (both photographs are mine)  –  but how … Read more

Friday fold: Harbledown Island

Reader Christian Gronau writes with this Friday fold contribution: Greetings from Cortes Island, BC – at the opposite end of the Strait vis-a-vis Lopez Island. Your Mountain Beltway blog is always of interest, and I have been following it for several years by now. Thank you for putting the effort into this worthwhile website. Quite … Read more

Friday fold: near Mistaya Lodge in the Canadian Rockies

Quick, awesome Friday fold here from the Canadian Rockies and Maggie Romuld: Maggie also posted another intriguing image of her hiking in the Canadian Rockies – and set geoTwitter abuzz with a discussion of whether she had captured load casts bulging out of the bottom side of a bed or stromatolites projecting upward from the … Read more

Ichnofossils in Gog quartzite

At the Spiral Tunnels overlook on the Trans-Canada Highway, you can look at trains. Or, you can check out some lovely trace fossils in boulders which divide the viewing area from the highway: These are in the Gog Formation, a Cambrian-aged quartz arenite, mostly fused to quartzite nowadays… I know which subject I would choose … Read more

Bedding / cleavage relations in the Stephen Formation, Yoho NP

Good afternoon! Here are a few photos, both plain and annotated, showing the relationship between primary sedimentary bedding and tectonic cleavage in the “tectonised Stephen” Formation atop the Cathedral Escarpment (in Yoho National Park), just northeast of the Walcott Quarry where the (thicker, basinward) Stephen Formation hosts the Burgess Shale. Weathering exploits both these planes … Read more

Friday fold: Three more from the Chancellor Slate

Remember our examination of buckle folding versus passive folding in the Chancellor Slate (cleaved limy mudrock) of eastern British Columbia? Well, here’s another example: There’s so much awesomeness going on in that image, it’s hard to know where to start. The prominent black thin layers are buckled in a very boxy, asymmetric way. In places, … Read more

Friday fold: differential weathering of carbonate intraclasts in mudstone

Howard Allen is the documentarian of this week’s fold: Howard writes that this is: Middle Cambrian Chancellor Formation rock with recessive weathering intraclasts(?). Hamilton Lake trail, Yoho National Park, British Columbia. My interpretation of this one is a little shaky–it was raining when I took the photo (in 1982) and I was hiking with a … Read more

Friday fold: rolled boudin

Howard Allen returns with a Friday fold contribution for this week. He says: Not exactly a fold, but I thought you’d like this rolled boudin(?) (quartz) in a muscovite garnet schist (note garnets above the lens cap). This specimen is also from the Shuswap Metamorphic Complex, north of Sicamous, British Columbia. Lovely. Thanks for sharing, … Read more

Friday fold: Shuswap marble, British Columbia

Howard Allen, a blog reader from Canada, digitized a bunch of folds for us from his old Kodachrome slides. You’ll be seeing selections from these images over the weeks to come. Get psyched! There are some great folds in this batch. Here’s the first: Howard’s description: 3D folded marble, Shuswap Metamorphic Complex, north of Sicamous, … Read more

Friday fold: Okanagan gneiss

Todd Redding is our genorous sponsor for this week’s Friday fold. Todd reports that this boulder is derived from the Okanagan Metamorphic Complex near Penticton, British Columbia, Canada. He gives its lat/long as 49°28’14.10″N, 119°30’23.14″W. Did you spot the small fault in there, too? Thanks for sharing, Todd!

Natural Bridge, Yoho National Park: Bedding/cleavage relationships

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