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
Another guest Friday fold from Howard Allen: View looking north at Mount Lyautey, on axis of the Lyautey Syncline, from Aster Lake trail, Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Alberta. Rocks are carbonates of the upper Mount Head Formation, Carboniferous (Mississippian). Photo taken in 1981.
Longtime reader and frequent contributor Howard Allen has three images to share with us today. Let’s see what he’s got… Oh my. What is that? West ridge of Mount Evan-Thomas, Opal Range, Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Alberta. View looking south across Grizzly Creek at structural features (yellow boxes outline detail images to highlight key features, … Read more
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
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
At the eroded gully known as Devil’s Coulee in Alberta, you can find armored mudballs, dinosaur fossils (including eggshell), and even marine clams at higher levels in the sequence. Check out these lovely beasts: They lived and died on the western shore of the Western Interior Seaway during the Cretaceous period of geologic time. My … Read more
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!
Hiking up to Crypt Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada, you can see some sweet stromatolites, and folds, too. But it’s not only that – you can also find some decent kink bands in those strata, too! These kink bands will serve as our Friday fold, on this Crypt-Lake-o-centric week. Here’s a second, … Read more
On the trail up to Crypt Lake in Waterton Lakes National Park (southernmost Alberta, Canada), there’s a ‘traditional’ hiking trail, and then an intense ledge on a glacial headwall that you must teeter along, including scaling your body up into and through a person-sized tunnel! Right at the transition between the two “phases” of the … Read more
Today, I’d like to share some images with you from Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada. This is the Crypt Lake hike, a popular (but grueling) hike in the park. It starts at the Waterton Marina, across Emerald Bay from the Prince of Wales Hotel. Mount Crandell and the Bear’s Hump are visible in … Read more
The Friday fold can be found this week at Turtle Mountain, Alberta, where it triggered a massive landslide.
This very short narrative (hardly even a proper “book” in the modern sense of the word) is by the survivor of a wretched ordeal, as the title suggests, off the coast of Newfoundland in 1908. I consumed the audiobook version, as a free download from my public library, and finished it in a single day’s … Read more
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
The Friday fold returns to Canada this week, with a look at an internally crumpled mountain along Alberta’s Kananaskis Trail…
The Friday fold series returns to Kootenay National Park in Canada for a look at some folded Cambrian limestones.
The broad symmetry (with smaller-scale variations) of this fold caught my eye as particularly artful when I saw it (at Howard’s recommendation) last summer in the Canadian Rockies: Kootenay National Park, British Columbia, Canada. I see a butterfly. What do you see? Happy Friday.
Callan & his students visit an outcrop on the Icefields Parkway in Alberta, showing a variety of white veins cutting dark rock.
Yesterday’s post showcasing my conversational critique of Intelligent Design got a lot of attention, including tweet love from @NCSE and @BadAstronomer, and a blog post at Pharyngula. So, at the risk of overkill, I decided to have a little fun with the Friday fold… Check out this fold that I found in float of Purcell … Read more
Slightly annotated photo of a Permian therapsid skull on display in the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. Another photo of this same skull is here. This reptile needs an orthodontist.