A whole book about aquarium fish? Yes, it’s possible, when the fish is the Asian arowana. The subtitle of Emily Voigt’s The Dragon Behind the Glass is “A True Story of Power, Obsession, and the World’s Most Coveted Fish.” The arowana is a fish that can be found in the Amazon (sometimes called the ‘water … Read more
As noted last week, I spent the week spanning New Year’s Eve in the enchanted isles of the Galapagos. The previous week (over Christmas) my family and I were in coastal Ecuador. I saw a total of three species of iguanas in the two locations, and they offer a neat little story of evolution. Let’s … Read more
One thing I got out of reading (listening to) Atlantic, by Simon Winchester, was a recommendation to read a classic story of adventure: Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World. As you might suspect, it’s an account of Slocum’s solo trip sailing his small boat, the Spray, around the world. He was the first person … Read more
One thing that’s 100% worth doing if you find yourself visiting Natural Bridge, Virginia, is to pop in for a visit at Foamhenge, an art installation a few miles away. Foamhenge is a full-scale replica of Stonehenge, made of styrofoam (covered in gray latex paint). It’s a few years old now, so it’s begun to … Read more
Well, it’s that time of the year again. Tomorrow morning, I pack up the car and head west. I’m giving myself five days to drive out to Bozeman, Montana, with three stops along the way to see people I like and talk about interesting stuff. Next week, my family flies out to join me. It’ll … Read more
The week before last, on the flight home from Texas, I finished reading Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux’s 2004 account of traveling overland through Africa from Cairo to Cape Town. I’ve enjoyed Theroux’s traveling writing very much over the years, and although he’s written some great novels (I’m thinking of Mosquito Coast), most of them … Read more
We wrap up our week-long odyssey along South Africa’s Hoerikwaggo Trail with a look at something we look at every Friday: folds! In this case, we’ll be examining folds in the bedding layers of the Table Mountain Sandstone.
Callan continues his week-long recounting of his five-day backpacking trip from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, South Africa, along the Hoerikwaggo Trail. Today, we examine the jointing, oxidizing and reducing fluid flow, and the emplacement of ore veins.
Callan continues his week-long recounting of his five-day backpacking trip from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, South Africa, along the Hoerikwaggo Trail. Today, we examine the Table Mountain Sandstone.
Callan begins a week-long recounting of his five-day backpacking trip from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, South Africa, along the Hoerikwaggo Trail. Today, we examine scenery and logistics of the trail.
Shawn at the blog Vi-carius is hosting this month’s Accretionary Wedge. He asks for a geoblogosphere-wide brainstorm on “dream geology courses” – an inspirational topic! I have a few ideas: A travel course dedicated to exploring the roots of geological thinking and the geological timescale. It would clearly need to be based in the U.K. … Read more
My AGU Blogosphere neighbor Evelyn of Georneys fame is hosting this month’s Accretionary Wedge. Her topic? “Field camp memories”… I never attended a bona fide field camp myself, but I attended a lovely “regional field geology” course that my undergraduate alma mater, the College of William & Mary, put on each summer in the Colorado … Read more
Grab your coffee and join Callan & Lily for a stroll along the quartzite cliffs of Hermanus, South Africa. Bedding, cross-bedding, joints, faults, veins, folded veins, and faulted veins all await you there in the morning light.
Click through for a big version… That’s the Athabasca Glacier, crown jewel of the Icefields Parkway in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. Its lateral moraines show well its retreat and “deflation” in recent years.
One year ago today, Lily and I had a fantastic wedding week in Montana. To celebrate the year we’ve been together since then, today I’ve got a gazillion photos to share – reliving the week for those who were there, and sharing it with those who weren’t able to make it… Our first group hike: … Read more
Mountain Beltway reader “Earth Mama” responded to the recent geo-meme (which started here, folks!) by compiling all these visit-worthy locations in a single Google Earth KMZ file. If reading the lists from the various geobloggers didn’t whet your appetite, now you’ve got the ‘virtual globe’ option…. Hi Callan, I wanted to thank you for the … Read more
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
After our “pre-honeymoon” sojourn to the Canadian Rockies last summer, Lily and I returned to the U.S. via Porthill, and then drove over to a place I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time: Yaak, Montana. Yaak (or “the Yaak“) is way up in the Kootenai National Forest, in way-way-way-northwesternmost Montana. We camped out … Read more
I just finished reading 101 American Geo-Sites You’ve Gotta See, one of the latest publications by geology-friendly (and Missoula-based) Mountain Press. I’m grateful to the the publishers for sending me a review copy. It’s a nicely written and produced book highlighting sites across the United States of America of geological interest. The book is organized … Read more
This is Dyer Island, off Gansbaai, southern South Africa, a little west of Cape Agulhas: Those are seals, a huge, crazy crowded colony of Cape fur seals. They are loud. They create a God-awful stink with all their fishy excrement. It was like being in a BBC nature program to see this firsthand. I could … Read more