Scops owl, Kruger National Park, South Africa Hi everyone! I’m back in the States. There will be more photos of wildlife and geology from South Africa to come in the days and weeks ahead, but this little fellow can be an appetizer for you. It was a great trip, but it also feels good to … Read more
While I was away in South Africa, both Brian Romans of Clastic Detritus and Evelyn Mervine of Georneys posted pictures of folds in quartzite of the Cape Fold Belt in southern South Africa. Well, I’m not going to be left out. Here’s a belated Friday fold for December 23, showing a bunch of sweet folds … Read more
A heads-up: I’m leaving Wednesday afternoon for a 3 week trip to South Africa. My wife Lily and I are off on our half-year-delayed honeymoon (to be distinguished from our Canadian Rockies pre-honeymoon last summer mainly by its exorbitant cost and low levels of geology). We will be spending the day in downtown London, England, … Read more
… a brief glimpse of summer in the Rockies: [youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbRx7W1nYUk”] Footage shot south of Blacktail Butte, in Jackson Hole, looking west towards the Teton Range, in Wyoming. July 2011. Gros Ventre River terrace in the mid-ground.
This summer, a week or two after our wedding, my wife and I found ourselves in the Canadian Rockies for a pre-honeymoon. Part of our time was spent on a backpacking trip to Floe Lake in Kootenay National Park, British Columbia. On our hike in, we passed this outcrop of Chancellor Slate, a Cambrian aged … Read more
Two images that have me scheming to go down to Veracruz, Mexico, next September for a weekend of hawk-watching: …Impressive, no? Better yet, check this out: …Oh. Yeah.
I’m on the plane home from the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, held this year in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This annual event features a robust smorgasbord of science, with talks and posters detailing the research efforts of thousands of geoscientists from the US and other countries. It’s an amazing experience on many, many … Read more
Straight-limbed open synform in an organic-rich formation of limited areal extent, featuring some brittle extensional features at the hinge. Kootenay National Park, British Columbia, summer 2011. (The bridge was broken before we got there.)
Giant City State Park is a patch of protected forest south of Carbondale, Illinois, where there are some pretty cool exposures of Pennsylvanian-aged Makanda Sandstone. Here’s a typical look at one: Notice the deep chasm on the right. This leads, maze-like, to other flat-bottomed and vertically-walled canyons: The orthogonal joint sets produces some nice tall, … Read more
Callan visits the Burgess Shale in British Columbia’s Yoho National Park on a guided tour. This photo-heavy post discusses the depositional setting of this world-famous Cambrian fossil deposit, the landscape along the hike, and (of course) the fossils themselves.
Callan embarks on an exhausting climb of a major summit in the Wyoming Bighorn mountains, a peak named in tribute of one of his geological heroes. Come join the trek to the top of Darton Peak!
Lily poses with amphibolite boudin (showing extensional veins) on the road in Kootenay Bay, British Columbia.
While out in the field with Butch Dooley last week, making major discoveries like I do, I was very impressed with the landscape-scale west Bighorn monocline, which takes formerly horizontal Madison limestone and skews it to a westward dip where the mountains end and the intermontane basin begins. It’s totally sweet. Check it out in photo form and gigapan, too.
These are the geobloggers that I was privileged enough to hang out with this last week, in chronological order: Steve Gough of Riparian Rap: Ed Adams of Geology Happens: Evelyn Mervine of Georneys: Alton Dooley of Updates From the Vertebrate Paleontology Lab: Garry Hayes of Geotripper: Geobloggers are good people. They blog because they like … Read more
A scene from last Thursday morning, when I left DC: Crossing from Colorado to Wyoming today; Bozeman tomorrow night!
Callan gets ready for a summer of travels out in the Rocky Mountains, including teaching a field geology course, participating in a workshop about teaching energy, visiting the Burgess Shale, and… getting married!
Atop the glorious pile of travertine that is Pamukkale (photos 1, 2, & 3), there is an ancient ruined city called Hierapolis. It was founded by the Romans in the second century BC, and was constructed (not surprisingly) from the most common locally available stone: travertine. A tomb with a view: This last one is … Read more
Callan shares a third batch of photos from the stunning travertine terraces at Pamukkale (“cotton castle”) in central Turkey, near the town of Denizli. Travertine structures on numerous scales are shown, adorned with flowers, tourists, and ducks.
Following on from Thursday’s initial suite of Pamukkale photos, here’s some more. More later!