Over the past few weeks, there’s been a fun game playing out on Twitter, hosted by Jorge (@lithospheric), called The Fault Cup, or #FaultCup in Twitterspeak. There’s a bracket showing one-on-one match ups between different faults, and then a 24 hour Twitter poll is posted, where the audience can vote for which one they want … Read more
Central Apennine stratigraphy and structure is on display in the wall of a quarry in Contessa Gorge, Italy. Have a look a nice normal fault and a submarine mass transport deposit.
The Friday folds are small soft-sediment deformational features within a dismembered, folded sandstone (a “ploudin”) from a mass transport deposit from the latest Devonian of West Virginia.
For the Friday fold, Callan digs out images of Eagle Rock, Virginia, well aged in his digital archive for a decade!
Today, let’s journey to Iceland, to a bit northwest of Reykjavík. This is a view from the top of the Grábrók cinder cone, across the valley to the east. With very few exceptions, Iceland is a big pile of basalt, and that shows through in the walls of this valley, which display a stack of … Read more
On the western coast of Islay, Saligo Bay showcases turbidites of the Neoproterozoic Colonsay Group. The Smaull Graywacke shows Caledonian (late Ordovician) folding and cleavage superimposed on world-class graded bedding. There’s also a nice dolerite dike to examine.
Sometimes you find big ideas in small places. Here, a South African chert boulder mimics in miniature fold and thrust belts the world over.
Can a Friday fold be a work of art as well as a source of geologic insight? The answer can be found as you enter Shetland’s Northmavine region.
A virtual field trip to the Walls Boundary Fault in Shetland reveals an embarrassment of Friday fold riches.
Time for another virtual field trip on the Geologist’s Grand Tour of the United Kingdom: the most famous outcrop in the world. Today, we visit Siccar Point, Scotland. You’ve probably already seen photos of this place – they usually look something like this: To those who aren’t familiar, here’s what going on: There are two … Read more
Thanks to the website ScottishGeology.com, run by Angus Miller, I learned of Barns Ness, a Mississippian-aged limestone fossil site on the shore not far from where we are staying at Dunbar. We ventured out there on Saturday afternoon, in search of fossils. The presence of the Dunbar Cemenet Works nearby is an indication that this … Read more
Dunbar, Scotland, is a nice little seaside town that also happens to be the birthplace of the conservationist John Muir. My family and I have been based out of here this week on our European geological GigaPan expedition. But on our first morning, upon visiting Siccar Point (which is nearby), I threw out my back, … Read more
Want a geological irony? Here’s one! You’re looking at a rounded boulder of Cushendun Conglomerate, a Devonian “Old Red Sandstone” unit (Cross Slieve Group) exposed at Cushendun Caves, Northern Ireland, U.K. The irony lies in the repetition of history – a tumbling environment of high water energy, rounding cobbles and boulders and depositing them, in … Read more
Glaciers can cause thrust faults! Explore an example from a trench south of Chicago.
Another week, another batch of new images produced on my home-based Magnify2 imaging system from GIGAmacro. Leptaena brachiopod in (Mississippian?) limestone from Montana: Link Here’s the flip side of the same sample, with a lot of fenestrate bryozoans to see: Link Fault breccia from the Corona Heights Fault of San Francisco: Link Amygdular metabasalt from … Read more
Join Callan for a virtual field trip, as he shares dozens of photos from a recent ‘field review’ of a new geological map in Virginia’s Valley & Ridge province. Highlights: graptolites, trace fossils, geopetal structures, folds and faults.
Explore a series of spherical photos taken on a field review of a new geologic map in western Virginia.
While I’ve spent quality time in Ireland on previous trips, I’ve never been to Scotland. To me, it is terra incognita, and I am eager to explore it this summer. It was with delight then, that I delved into David Oldroyd’s The Highlands Controversy, which at once tickled many parts of my brain: the structural … Read more
At the end of the AGU Fall meeting, Callan visits the Corona Heights “mirror” fault, renowned for its gorgeous slickensides. Explore the site in photos in GigaPans.
Hampshire Formation outcrops on Corridor H, West Virginia: link (Marissa Dudek) link (Callan Bentley) Faults in the Tonoloway Formation, Corridor H, West Virginia: link (Marissa Dudek) Conococheague Formation, showing stromatolites and cross-bedding: link (Callan Bentley) link (Jeffrey Rollins) Tiny folds and faults, from a sample I collected somewhere, sometime… oh well, it’s cool regardless: link … Read more