The Konnarock Formation
A detailed description of one of the Virginia Blue Ridge’s most intriguing geologic formations: a maroon sedimentary sequence showing the advance of “Snowball Earth” glaciers in the Neoproterozoic.
virginia
Scenes from the Virginia Museum of Natural History
The author describes a quick visit to the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, Virginia, on his way back to DC from Thanksgiving travel. Highlights: a dinosaur, a giant stromatolite, encrusting crinoids (they do that?) and a giant ground sloth.
Geology of the Richmond area field trip
On Saturday, after a fruitful 24 hours at the VCCS Science Peer Conference, my colleague Pete Berquist (of Thomas Nelson Community College) and I led a field trip to examine the geology of the Richmond, Virginia, area. We were joined by seven of our VCCS science-teaching colleagues and author Lisa Starr, a speaker at the … Read more
Friday fold: twice-folded turbidites at Black Pond
Today’s Friday fold comes to us courtesy of Gary Fleming, botanist extraordinaire and brother of Tony Fleming, geological Jack of All Trades. Together, the Fleming brothers led a field trip for the Geological Society of Washington. While I was on that field trip, the topic of polyphase deformation came up, which led a couple of … Read more
Photos from Virginia Geological Field Conference
For the second year in a row, more exotic travel plans meant that I wasn’t able to attend the superb Virginia Geological Field Conference. I see that they have now posted some photos on the group’s Facebook page, so go check them out to see what we both missed last weekend. Here’s a taste: Sheared … Read more
Drilling: what, why, and how
As mentioned, I spent a significant part of last weekend was spent on a paleomagnetic sampling project with collaborators from the University of Michigan. On Friday, this was our field area: That’s the south slopes of Old Rag Mountain, a popular Blue Ridge hiking destination because unlike many Virginia peaks, when you get to the … Read more
Aeolian sand in Hampton, VA
This video was produced by my friend Pete Berquist. It shows rapidly moving “sheets” of sand saltating down Grandview Beach in Hampton, Virginia, during high winds associated with Hurricane Earl. What do you notice here? A couple of things jump out at me, but I’d be curious to hear what this video makes Mountain Beltway … Read more
Geology of Massanutten Mountain, Virginia
Here’s a new video from Greg Willis, the same guy who brought us a fine video on Piedmont geology. In this new opus (20 minutes), Greg details the geology of the Massanutten Synclinorium (Shenandoah Valley, Massanutten Mountain, and Fort Valley) in western Virginia. WordPress isn’t letting me embed it here, but you should go and … Read more
At the edge of the intrusion
Mountain Beltway reader Greg Willis attended my colleague Ken Rasmussen’s Triassic Rift Valley field course last weekend, and sent me this photo of the view inside the Luck Stone diabase quarry in Centreville, Virginia: Here’s an annotated version: Both photos are enlargeable by clicking on them (twice). This quarry chews into rock right along the … Read more
A day in the field
I spent last Thursday on a long field trip in the Valley and Ridge province of northernwestern Virginia. Leading the trip was Dan Doctor of the USGS-Reston. Accompanying Dan was a UVA environmental science student named Nathan. And the NOVA crew rounded it out: professor Ken Rasmussen from the Annandale campus, associate professor Victor Zabielski … Read more