Snow may have cancelled the geology class, but there’s plenty to see outside! Join us for a tour of three fine examples of physical analogues in snow that show deformation akin to that we observe in rocks under tectonic stresses.
Here’s a puzzler to warm up your chilly brain this Wednesday morning: Click to enlarge Figure out the story told by this set of imprints in the snow. The branch of science called ichnology studies the traces organisms leave behind. There’s a neat little story here. If you’ve got a guess, then you can check … Read more
I went out last Tuesday to Corridor H, the exemplary new highway cutting through the Valley and Ridge province of eastern West Virginia. Joining me was former student Alan Pitts, a devotee of Corridor H from way back in the early days when we just called it “New Route 55.” The boondoggle highway is now … Read more
It’s another cold morning in the Fort Valley. To celebrate winter’s continuing grip, please enjoy these images from last Friday morning, on my way to work… Frost on plants: Frost on barbed wire: Finally, here’s a time-lapse video (5 times actual speed) of the first 6 miles of my commute (walking, then driving): [vimeo=http://vimeo.com/85285064]
On my morning walk earlier in the month, I encountered this trackway: Those are percheron (big breed of horse) hoof-prints, and the tracks of an authentic one-horse open sleigh, like the one invoked in “Jingle Bells!” Our neighbor, Don Warlick of Secret Passage Ranch, brings the sleigh out for neighborhood fun when conditions are right… … Read more
So we ended up getting 13 or 14 inches of snow yesterday. It was wet, and the temperature was right around freezing. As soon as it stopped falling, it started melting. One interesting aspect of this is that big wads of slushy snow were plopping off the trees every time a gust of wind came … Read more
There’s something so awesome about a heavy snowfall, so transformative – it really inspires me. I went out skiing this morning, and I’ve never seen our house looking more beautiful. The snow is about 11 inches deep so far: It’s a wet, heavy snow. Temperatures are hovering right around 32°F (0°C), so it’s sticking to … Read more
It’s lovely here in the Fort Valley this morning! Lily went skiing: Lola sat in the window: Yay!
Photo by Stephen Smith Alderson / Carthew lakes / summit area, depending on who you ask. Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.
Last summer, my wife and I spent some time in the Canadian Rockies. One of the things we did was to take a three-day backpacking trip to Floe Lake, in Kootenay National Park, British Columbia. We picked a rough couple of days for hiking – We got a lot of Canadian Rockies precipitation out there: … Read more
Here are some photos out the window of my flight home from California the week before last… Snow on the north sides of mountains, but not on the south sides (view is from the south towards the north): Same thing here: And again… And again… it would appear that our route from Reno to Minneapolis … Read more
White Mountains, California. Photo (and animated GIF) by Filip Goc. A little silliness for your Tuesday morning.
Some views from the airplane, over southern Wyoming (first two photos) and north-central Nevada (last four), last Saturday morning… A canyon: …and zooming in to the middle area of the previous photo: Strata upwarped into a structural dome (that has been “planed off” to be topographically horizontal, revealing a bull’s-eye-shaped outcrop pattern, then differentially weathered … Read more
I think snow can act as a nice analogue for larger-scale rock deformation. I explored this a bit last February, and I was reminded of it again last week, when I walked to my car one morning and saw this: Notice how the slab of snow on the hood (“bonnet” for British readers) of my … Read more
The weekly example of a fold is especially… “cool” this week.
Earlier in the month, during the big snowstorms, my window got plastered with snow. This snow formed a vertical layer which then deformed under the influence of gravity. Looking at it through the glass, I was struck by how it could serve as a miniature analogue for the deformation typical of a mountain belt. Let’s … Read more
A look out the back window as DC breaks its annual snowfall record…
Intersection of 16th Street and Columbia Road NW… … a wee bit underexposed, eh? Guess the high albedo blew out my iPhone camera. (glove for scale)