I have two Friday folds for you today, both by geovisualizers who contributed to the 2019 Geological Society of America Pardee Symposium on Geoscience Communication in Phoenix, Arizona: The first is a painting by talented geoartist Emma Theresa Jude, showing a fold at Caithness, Scotland. The fold in question can be seen at the site … Read more
The Friday folds are small soft-sediment deformational features within a dismembered, folded sandstone (a “ploudin”) from a mass transport deposit from the latest Devonian of West Virginia.
Since I showed off the 3D kimberlite intrusion breccias yesterday, I feel as if I owe you some other photos from that lovely exhibit at the IGC. I apologize for the poor quality of these photos – the gorgeous samples were behind glass and brightly lit, which made photography difficult. But the rocks are sooooooooo … Read more
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
As mentioned yesterday, my student Robin has been having some success lately in making GigaPan-scale imagery using the new desktop scanning electron microscope that our division acquired. They aren’t as super-high resolution as most of the other GigaPan images I post here, but they are very, very small – and thus expand the scope of … Read more
My student Robin has been working (on and off) for more than a year to figure out the best way to make GigaPan-scale imagery using the new desktop scanning electron microscope that our academic division acquired. There are several technical challenges to be overcome, each different, and some with ‘solutions’ that cause other problems. Dealing … Read more
Recently, I bought a microscope for home use. This has been a longtime goal for me. I’ve dreamed of having my own microscope the way some guys fantasize about a Porsche 911. It’s an AmScope model, and it has an attachment for a small digital camera that comes with the scope. While the scope is … Read more
Biotite in granite: Riebeckite: Fast and slow versions of each. Wanted to post these ASAP, so someone can use them for the Geology Word of the Week…
A few microscope photos for you, showing close-ups of feldspars in igneous dikes in the Crazy Mountains of Montana… You’ve seen these rocks before, when I posted a few field photos from this area in August 2009. I took these images of feldspar phenocrysts in a hand sample (from a quartz latite dike) with my … Read more
Hopefully seasoned readers of this blog will remember this nice chunk of limestone with pyrolusite (MnO2) dendrites growing on its surface. I took some close-ups with my Nikon microscope a few weeks ago. Here they are; enjoy! The width of the field of view in each photograph is about 1.1 cm: BTW, Mike likes dendrites, … Read more
Here’s three shots of the Konnarock Formation diamictite, taken with my Nikon microscope. Field of view is about 1 cm in each shot.
When I was out in California in October 2009, about the same time that Garry Hayes passed me on the highway heading up to Yosemite while I was headed down towards the Modesto Airport, I pulled over to check out some rock exposures on the side of the road. This was near the Don Pedro … Read more
More of the new scientific medium* I showed you on Wednesday: animated GIFs of super-small stuff, to give a sense of depth. This time, I included a 1 mm scale bar: These are laminations of silt and clay in the rhythmites of the lower Konnarock Formation. If the above image moves too fast for your … Read more
An animated image showing changing focus on a microscope camera aimed at a sample of S-C fabric is shared. Readers are encouraged to brainstorm uses for animated GIF images in the geosciences.
My friend Dave Auldridge, formerly a structural geology student of mine at George Mason University, is now in grad school at the University of Alabama. Dave is working on an interesting project with speleothems: those drippy looking CaCO3 growths that you find in caves, like stalactites and stalagmites. He’s looking at these speleothems in order … Read more