Mount Washington 3: turbidites and their metamorphism

After my cousin Brad caught up with us after our Pinkham Notch roadcut excursion, we started up the trail at Tuckerman Ravine, and then detoured to go via the Lion Head. Immediately, we began to see some freaking awesome metamorphic porphyroblasts. During the Acadian Orogeny (in the late Devonian), the original muds and sands (deep … Read more

News from the Billy Goat Trail (3): grab bag

Okay, a final post (for now, anyhow) sharing some images from last Friday’s field trip to the Billy Goat Trail, in Potomac, Maryland. Yesterday we looked at lamprophyre dikes, but there are other dikes on the Billy Goat Trail, too. Like this granite pegmatite: What’s interesting to me about this is that the joint set … Read more

Friday fold: blueschist

Lately, this blog has been focusing a lot on a subduction zone complex in Turkey, the Tavşanlı Zone. Much of the geologic appeal of that complex is its profusion of high-pressure, low-temperature metamorphic rocks, those in the blueschist metamorphic facies. From the last location visited on the Tavşanlı Zone field trip, I collected this fine … Read more

Tavşanlı Zone field trip, part 6

Part 5 of the Tavşanlı Zone field trip left us eating lunch amid some fine blueschists. Of course, nothing tops off a blueschist lunch like… more blueschist. So after our meal, we took another stroll through the countryside in search of more interesting subduction zone rocks… I’;ve got a bunch more photos for you today. … Read more