Today I’m in the air, on my way back to Turkey for the Tectonic Crossroads conference being held in Ankara next week. Before the meeting, I’m joining a field trip to examine a subduction zone complex. Over three days, we will drive from Istanbul to Ankara by way of ophiolites and blueschists and other geologic … Read more
I’ll bet this Turkish children’s clothing company really wishes they had gone with something else for their name… Yikes.
The Haghia Sophia (or “Ayasophia”) is an astounding building in old town Istanbul. It is an ancient cathedral turned mosque turned museum. Through all these incarnations, the Hagia Sophia has retained some features and had other ones added on: it is a palimpsest of architecture, symbology, and history. Walking through its soaring main chamber, or … Read more
In Istanbul over the summer, Lily and I checked out the “Blue Mosque,” named for the predominant color of the mosaic tiles in its interior. It’s more formally know as “Sultan Ahmed Mosque,” named for the sultan who commissioned its construction in 1609. It is an elegant building: I loved the “pile of bubbles” effect … Read more
Over the summer, when my blogging access was limited to my iPhone, I uploaded a photo (taken with the iPhone) of a metamorphosed graded bed on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. Here’s another one that I saw, further down on the mountain, on the Auto Road (famous for its iconic bumper sticker): Lens … Read more
This recycling collection can in Istanbul amused me:
Another animated GIF, this one showing the ancient defensive walls that bound old town Istanbul (which is old town Constantinople, which is old town Byzantium), now ringed by a freeway and then the rip-rap-covered shore of the Bosphorus: There’s a paved walking path between the freeway and the shore; that’s where I was standing to … Read more
Check out this selection of fine soups, as displayed at the front of a restaurant (that we bypassed) in Pamukkale, Turkey: Close-ups that may be easier to read: Bon Appétit!
This is the coolest thing I’ve seen this week: a graded bed metamorphosed via Acadian mountain building: The graded bed starts at the Swiss army knife at left, where you see an abrupt transition between coarse grained metamorphic porphyroblasts (“pseudo-andalusites”) and finer grained quartzite. This was once a mud to sand transition when these were … Read more
Hey there folks, Long tıme no blog. I am enjoyıng Turkey. We spent several cool days ın Istanbul, checkıng out the awesome buıldıngs and twısty streets and great food there. Took a boat tour up the Bosphorus, walked across the Golden Horn. The Haghıa Sophıa ıs amazıng… a Chrıstıan cathedral datıng to Emporer Justınıan, then … Read more