Friday fold: a return to the duplex structure in the Gastropod Limestone

Some time ago, I featured as Friday fold the extraordinarily complex duplex structure to be seen in the Cretaceous “gastropod limestone” member of the Kootenai Formation at Sandy Hollow, Montana. Today, let’s take a deeper look through a couple of hand-shot GigaPan images: Here’s the bigger of the two: [gigapan id=”176119″] link Here’s one with … Read more

Stromatolites of the Helena Formation, Grinnell Glacier Cirque, Montana

My favorite place to have lunch in Montana is at the Grinnell Glacier cirque in Glacier National Park. This is the dining room table: You’re looking at a bedding-plane-parallel exposure of Mesoproterozoic stromatolites here. Every few years, I’m lucky enough to hike up there with motivated students and share food atop this unparalleled view into … Read more

Purcell Sill, layer-jumping

After reading the post last weekend about the discordant offshoot of the Purcell Sill, Rich Gashnig (post-doc at Georgia Tech) sent me a few photos he shot at Piegan Pass (at the head of a side-canyon adjacent to the one containing Grinnell Glacier). They show the Purcell Sill leaving one stratigraphic horizon and jumping to … Read more

Oolitic soft sediment deformation in Helena Fm. limestone

Another gem from the Grinnell Glacier cirque: Zooming in on the contact, showing the concentrically-zoned ooids: Near the tip of the flame structure (?), I noted alignment of longer platy / flaky components within the oolitic layer: This looks like a loading structure – soft sediment deformation due to a density inversion – perhaps when … Read more

Friday fold: Opal Range, Alberta

Howard Allen is the Friday folder who keeps on giving… Here’s his latest: Multiple folds at top of ridge, Opal Range, Alberta. Photographed from Kananaskis Highway 40, looking SE. Beds are Carboniferous carbonates, probably Mount Head and/or Etherington formations. There are lots of great folds to be seen along that road. The Kananaskis Trail is … Read more

Early Paleozoic fossils in Nealmont Formation, Germany Valley, West Virginia

Looking at Ordovician carbonates in Germany Valley, West Virginia, a few weeks ago on Rick Diecchio’s GMU sedimentology and stratigraphy course field trip: Lots and lots of brachiopods… Crinoid columnals mized with brachiopods: A set of coarsely-infilled trace fossils: Crinoid stem: Nice strophomenid brachiopod: Bryozoan? Receptaculid?

Fault breccia in Beekmantown limestone

Here’s another sight at the Eocene dikes site in Bluegrass Valley, Virginia, mentioned yesterday: That’s a gorgeous fault breccia, emplaced parallel to bedding, and parallel to the felsic dike (which can be found a few feet to the west / right of these photos): It was very poorly lithified, shockingly crumbly to the touch, considering … Read more