fossils

A virtual field trip to Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland

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Rathlin Island lies north of mainland Northern Ireland, a few miles offshore. I spent three lovely days there this past summer, investigating the geology and appreciating the wildlife (puffins and other sea birds, and seals). The geology is pretty straightforward: Paleogene basalt overlying Cretaceous “chalk” (really not so chalky here – technically, it’s the Ulster … Read more

Virginia Museum of Natural History specimens in GIGAmacro view

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One of the small sub-projects of my 2015-2017 Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship is to create some GIGAmacro images of cool fossil specimens from the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville. Curator of paleontology Alex Hastings was good enough to loan us a few specimens to image, and hopefully there will soon be more where they … Read more

Oldest fossils in the UK: M.I.S.S. in Stoer Group, Scotland

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This is the Split Rock at Clachtoll, on the shore of the North-West Highlands of Scotland. You’re looking out to sea, over the Minch. It’s the site that graces the cover of the excellent book A Geological Excursion Guide to the North-West Highlands of Scotland, by Kathryn Goodenough and Marten Krabbendam. “Clach toll” apparently means … Read more

“Dunbar marble” at Barns Ness, Scotland

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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

Nine new GigaPans from Team M.A.G.I.C.

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Alethopteris fern fossil: [gigapan id=”187190″] Link GIGAmacro by Robin Rohrback Rapid River Canyon, Idaho: [gigapan id=”187535″] Link GigaPan by Callan Bentley River cobble of brecciated Columbia River Basalt, Hammer Creek (Salmon River), Idaho: [gigapan id=”187524″] Link GIGAmacro by Callan Bentley Petersburg Granite exposed at Belle Isle, Richmond, Virginia: [gigapan id=”187523″] Link GigaPan by Jeffrey Rollins … Read more

Brachiopodapalooza via GIGAmacro

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Another week, another batch of new images produced on my home-based Magnify2 imaging system from GIGAmacro. This week, you can see that I’ve been on a real brachiopod tear – here are seven images of those two-shelled filter feeders from the Paleozoic… [gigapan id=”186440″] Link [gigapan id=”186107″] Link [gigapan id=”186379″] Link [gigapan id=”186280″] Link [gigapan … Read more

New GIGAmacro images of rock samples

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Another week, another batch of new images produced on my home-based Magnify2 imaging system from GIGAmacro. Leptaena brachiopod in (Mississippian?) limestone from Montana: [gigapan id=”185784″] Link Here’s the flip side of the same sample, with a lot of fenestrate bryozoans to see: [gigapan id=”185809″] Link Fault breccia from the Corona Heights Fault of San Francisco: … Read more

Five new GIGAmacro images

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Here are a few new images I’ve been working on with my home-based Magnify2 imaging system from GIGAmacro. Strophomenid brachiopods from Mississippian Mauch Chunk Formation, West Virginia: [gigapan id=”185738″] Link Boninite from New Caledonia: [gigapan id=”185707″] Link Lepidodendron scale-tree bark from Poland: [gigapan id=”185689″] Link Potassium feldspar crystal, from a pegmatite: [gigapan id=”185688″] Link Catoctin … Read more