Four new videos about east coast geology
Hi all! I’ve been putting my energy into video production more than blogging lately, but let me share some of that work with you:
maryland
Friday fold: lithified python
A quick Friday fold that I observed last month in a boulder of riprap at Chippokes State Park in Surry, Virginia. I have absolutely no idea where this rock was quarried; but it doesn’t look like anything I’m familiar with in Virginia, so maybe the Baltimore Mafic Complex??? Anyhow, it’s not native to the Coastal … Read more
Friday folds: Mather Gorge Formation
It’s been a very Billy-Goaty week for me. Three times since Sunday afternoon, I’ve taken people to the Billy Goat Trail’s “A” loop in C&O Canal National Historical Park. On Tuesday and Thursday, it was my NOVA Physical Geology students. On Sunday, though, it was just my son and me. Good news! He helped me … Read more
Beautiful Swimmers, by William Warner
The subtitle of this wonderful book is “Watermen, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay.” It’s an excellent account of crab ecology in the Chesapeake Bay as it stood in the mid-1970s, and simultaneously a sympathetic portrait of the lives of the locals who capture those crabs for sale to the seafood market. The writing is thoughtful … Read more
Friday fold: toothpasty Tomstown
I spent last weekend at the National Association of Geoscience Teachers’ Eastern Section meeting, based out of the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville, Maryland. One of the two field trips I took headed out to the western Piedmont, Blue Ridge and Valley & Ridge provinces of western Maryland. On that trip, we took … Read more
Gabion
Do you remember the blog post four years ago about documenting the doomed outcrops at Scientists’ Cliffs, Maryland? It was the site of gorgeous Miocene fossil exposures in the Calvert Formation. Here’s what the site looks like now: Photo by Peter Vogt That ugly thing at the base of the cliff is a gabion, … Read more
Friday fold: the Bradshaw Layered Amphibolite
The Friday fold can be found along the Fall Zone, where crystalline metaigneous rocks of the Piedmont meet the gently sloping strata of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Contemplate their high metamorphic grade and their tight folding, and imagine the mighty mountains that once rose on this spot.
New GigaPans from Team M.A.G.I.C.
Hampshire Formation outcrops on Corridor H, West Virginia: [gigapan id=”178008″] link (Marissa Dudek) [gigapan id=”177198″] link (Callan Bentley) Faults in the Tonoloway Formation, Corridor H, West Virginia: [gigapan id=”176602″] link (Marissa Dudek) Conococheague Formation, showing stromatolites and cross-bedding: [gigapan id=”177155″] link (Callan Bentley) [gigapan id=”177355″] link (Jeffrey Rollins) Tiny folds and faults, from a sample … Read more
The Sykesville Formation, in 6 new GigaPans
As part of my work on the GEODE project, I’m always looking for good imagery to teach key concepts in geoscience. One important concept that I’ve been thinking about lately is the principle of relative dating on the basis of inclusions. Just as you can’t bake a loaf of raisin bread without already having raisins … Read more
Friday fold: Tight syncline/anticline pair in Brallier Formation
The Friday fold shows clastic detritus (turbidites or “flysch” from the Acadian Orogeny) crumpled into tight folds due to the later Alleghanian Orogeny.