Upturned Paleozoic strata on Highway 16, Bighorns, Wyoming

Here’s a terrific outcrop to start off the new year at Mountain Beltway. We’re back in the Bighorns of Wyoming here, on highway 16, traversing the southern portion of the range en route from Buffalo to South Pass City. Click to enlarge Annotated, expanded, and Easter-egg-embedded: Click to enlarge From a different perspective (uphill a … Read more

Geology and wine in northern Virginia, part II: the Valley & Ridge

Callan attends the Geological Society of Washington’s fall field trip, examining the relationship between grape-growing and the underlying geology of two provinces in northern Virginia: the Blue Ridge and the Valley & Ridge. With GSW compatriots, Callan visited Hume Vineyards in the central Blue Ridge province and North Mountain Vineyard and Winery in the Shenandoah Valley. This is part II of the field trip report.

Brecciation & percussion in Antietam Formation

Further upstream from the Skolithos and the snake and the diabase rip-rap… The field review team wandered down onto a creekside outcrop of Antietam Formation. The Antietam is a quartz sandstone, with variable levels of deformation, depending on where you look. In some places, it has been gently strained with the little Skolithos tubes taking … Read more

Veiled geology at Naked Creek

As I mentioned, Monday had me out in the field, looking at the western Blue Ridge and eastern Valley & Ridge provinces in Virginia. This was a field review for the new geologic map of the Elkton East quadrangle by Chelsea Jenkins, Chuck Bailey, Mary Cox, and Grace Dawson. Immediately after lunch, we visited an … Read more

Overturned bedding in the Weverton (?) Formation

On Monday, I was out in the field at the Blue Ridge / Valley & Ridge transition (“boundary”?) in the Elkton East quadrangle, where Chuck Bailey and students (from the College of William & Mary) were leading a field review of their new geologic map. A field review is a form of field-based peer review, … Read more