West of Shell, Wyoming, on route 14, there is a lovely exposure showing the tilted stratigraphic contact between the lower Tensleep Formation (purple; Pennsylvanian period) underneath Goose Egg Formation (orange/tan; Permian to Triassic in age). The contact dips to the west because it has been deformed during Laramide mountain-building (uplift of the Bighorn block, and … Read more
Callan presents a gazillion photos from a field trip to examine the Rockfish Conglomerate, a potential Snowball Earth glacial outwash facies from the Neoproterozoic of the Virginia Blue Ridge province.
Callan visits the grave of John Wesley Powell, second director of the USGS and explorer of the Grand Canyon, on an afternoon in Arlington National Cemetery.
Here’s a gigapan I shot last Saturday, looking north from Signal Knob, Virginia: As usual, you can see it full screen, by clicking on the word “Gigapan” in the lower right.
Here’s a gigapan I shot last yesterday, looking west from “Blue Hole” towards a cliff of Massanutten Formation sandstone, south of Waterlick, Virginia. A prominent fault zone can be seen in the center of the image. Unfortunately, the auto-stitch deformed my face. I look like Quasimodo. Oh well. As usual, you can see it full … Read more
Callan pays a visit to the grave of celebrated paleontologist and geological administrator Charles D. Walcott.
A fresh gigapan, of my office bookshelf. There’s some rocks there: Find anything neat?
Yesterday afternoon, I spent some time in the field with a colleague, a student, and a gigapan. I took four gigapan images, which are of varying quality due to the partly cloudy day, but still you ought to find them interesting to explore. You can see any of them full-screen by clicking on the word … Read more
I shot this gigapan (900 images) last Thursday during the lunch break of the annual “Geology of Virginia” symposium hosted by the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Geology and Mineral Resources. It shows the rock garden outside the DGMR’s offices in Charlottesville, a place where they have collected charismatic megasamples from across the state’s five … Read more
Lily and I took a hike yesterday over Old Rag Mountain, a popular destination in Shenandoah National Park. I took the opportunity to shoot a few gigapan images of the scene. If you click on the word “Gigapan” in the lower right of any of these images, it will take you to gigapan.org’s full page … Read more
Click this image to go to a big panorama (but not big enough to be hosted by Gigapan) of one of the valleys near Göreme, Capadoccia, Turkey: Note: The agriculture that lines the bottom of the valley. The colors of the tuff, and how they vary from place to place. The differentially eroding layer that … Read more
Today, you get the first of several batches of photos dealing with one of the most magical places I’ve ever been, the Cappadocia region of Turkey. Cappadocia (pronounced “kap-uh-doke-ee-yuh“) is an area of eroded volcanic tuffs. The overall effect is badlands-like, but without the micro-turrets and hoodoos. The individual erosional remnants are larger in Cappadocia … Read more
I’m off today to the first ever Fine International Conference on Gigapixel Imaging for Science, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania over the next several days. There, as one of this year’s cadre of Fine fellows, I’ll be given a Gigapan camera robot and photo-stitching software, and they will train me how to use it. I’m looking … Read more
What do I have in common with luminaries like Mike Fay, James Balog, and Stuart Pimm? We’re all this year’s cadre of Fine Fellows, recipients of free Gigapanning equipment and training (at a conference in Pittsburgh in November) on how to use it. Ron Schott is of course the king of geology Gigapanners, though he … Read more