Four new videos about east coast geology
Hi all! I’ve been putting my energy into video production more than blogging lately, but let me share some of that work with you:
Hi all! I’ve been putting my energy into video production more than blogging lately, but let me share some of that work with you:
On a birding hike yesterday morning, I found this: This is a little slab of kinked phyllite of the Candler Formation. This metamorphic rock started as mud (and ash) deposited atop the Catoctin Formation, and it was later squeezed and heated during Appalachian mountain-building, encouraging the growth of micas at the expense of clay. A … Read more
Happy Friday, friends. Here’s a rock sample that I recently polished up: It shows crenulations in “pinstriped” schist of the western Piedmont in Pleasant Grove Park in Fluvanna County, mapped as the Mine Run Complex. Lovely stuff, eh?
Callan recounts a little lesson in taking a photograph of an outcrop that expresses itself more readily to the novice eye.
Trying to dredge up some blogging inspiration, but honestly I’m feeling underrested and overworked these days, and not particularly enthusiastic about writing. But here are some cool rocks I’ve seen lately; maybe you’ll find them interesting… Antietam Formation quartzite at Sherando Lake, Virginia: I was struck by how sugary the texture was, and the interesting … Read more
A return to the “video Friday fold” format:
Two weeks ago was the annual Virginia Geological Field Conference, which was centered this year on the Goochland Terrane, an interesting block of crust in the Piedmont which shows some similarities to the Blue Ridge geologic province, but also shows some differences that suggest it’s not just a mini-Blue-Ridge. One of the best exposures was … Read more
This weekend, my family and I traveled to a little agrotainment complex north of Harrisonburg, Virginia, a joint called Back Home On The Farm. It featured a corn maze, hayrides, petting zoo, apple cider donuts, and pumpkin picking. All typical fall frolic; good clean fun. But there were also big blocks of limestone everywhere on … Read more
Earlier this summer, I was lucky enough to visit a soapstone quarrying operation in Schuyler, Virginia, right on the Albemarle/Nelson County line. These soapstone bodies are metamorphosed ultramafic intrusions into the Neoproterozoic sedimentary deposits of the Lynchburg Group. The protolith peridotite sill crystallized at ~580 Ma, meaning the host sediments are older than that (but … Read more
Happy Friday! Here are some kink-folded metasediments from Virginia’s Lynchburg Group to help usher in the weekend.