This week’s batch of 3D models
Anorthosite with lovely garnet reaction rims, a spherical hematite concretion, and some sweet breccia. Check them out and explore!
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Cooling columns of the Catoctin Formation, Indian Run Overlook, Shenandoah...
It’s National Park Week, which means free entrance to our nation’s many wonderful national parks. My local park is Shenandoah National Park, astride the Blue Ridge one mountain range over from my...
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Who ate the woodpecker?
Occasionally, our big windows get in the way of birds. The latest casualty was a hairy woodpecker, Leuconotopicus villosus. While it’s sad that our home being where it is caused the end of this bird’s...
View ArticleNine new GigaPans from Team M.A.G.I.C.
Alethopteris fern fossil: Link GIGAmacro by Robin Rohrback Rapid River Canyon, Idaho: Link GigaPan by Callan Bentley River cobble of brecciated Columbia River Basalt, Hammer Creek (Salmon River),...
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Scenes from a cut bank
My family and I went canoeing this weekend, and one of the more photogenic things we saw on the river was this fine cut bank: The bank is being actively undercut by the river, as evidenced by the...
View ArticleCleavage refraction in Konnarock Fm. rhythmites – a virtual sample
Here’s a visualization combination that leverages the advantages of the GIGAmacro system with the 3D ‘virtual sample’ perspective of the Sketchfab-hosted model: the same sample presented in both...
View ArticleGeopoetry: a short recounting of Virginia’s long history
…And now for something completely different! This past weekend, my family gathered in Capon Springs, West Virginia, to celebrate my mother’s 70th birthday. She asked for an unusual birthday gift – an...
View ArticleVirginia Museum of Natural History specimens in GIGAmacro view
One of the small sub-projects of my 2015-2017 Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship is to create some GIGAmacro images of cool fossil specimens from the Virginia Museum of Natural History in...
View ArticleNew digital media of Shenandoah National Park feeder dikes
In Shenandoah National Park, astride Virginia’s Blue Ridge, feeder dikes of Catoctin Formation (meta-)basalt cut across the Grenvillian-aged granitoid basement. Due to their mafic composition and...
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Silent samples, holey samples
Here’s a riddle for you: what gets bigger, the more you take away from it? Answer: a hole! Here are two geological samples that show holes. In both cases, I’m not totally sure why, and I’m hoping...
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2016 Yard List
Eastern bluebird (and its lunch, a camel cricket) Purple finch (male) At New Year’s, I post my “yard list” here. It’s a list of all the bird species observed in my yard in Fort Valley, Virginia, over...
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Q&A, episode 2
Time for another episode of “you ask the questions”… After posting a Google Form to allow anyone to submit questions anonymously last week, I got some excellent questions/topics submitted. I’ll try to...
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Concretions in the Millboro Formation, Fort Valley
Yesterday was a gorgeous late spring day* in the Fort Valley, and I was delighted to engage in my first day of field work of 2017. Skies were clear, the temperature soared to a decadent 80°F, and I...
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Bedding / cleavage intersections at Indian Spring, Fort Valley
As mentioned over the weekend, last Friday was my first field day of the season. I visited a spot called “Indian Spring” in the central Fort Valley. The spot is on private property, but the landowner...
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Cleaved, boudinaged, folded Edinburg Formation southwest of Lexington
Examine these two photos, and ask yourself: what am I seeing here? Got your answers? Let’s take a closer look, one image at a time: And now the second one: These are limestones and shales of the...
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Basement xenoliths in Catoctin Formation, Compton Pass
My son and I hiked Compton Peak in Shenandoah National Park this morning, and saw these two lovely examples of xenoliths. The example above is small, but it shows clearly the difference between the...
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Friday fold: Eagle Rock
This Friday, I’m resurrecting some photos I stumbled across in my digital archive from a field trip I took a decade ago. These images show Eagle Rock, a big, messed up outcrop in Botetourt County...
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VGFC 2017: Limbs of arkose
This past weekend was the annual Virginia Geological Field Conference, hosted by Piedmont Virginia Community College, with a field trip led by Chuck Bailey, Megan Flansburg, Katie Lang, and Tom Biggs....
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Friday fold: Quantankerous veins
What does it mean for a vein to be “quantankerous?” Well, to start with, it’s quartz. Second, it has to be disagreeable or cantankerous. This vein, seen in meta-arkose of the Catoctin Formation near...
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A new approach for teaching the geologic history of Virginia
I believe in tinkering with my teaching, and reflecting on the new approaches to see if I think they’re worth keeping or not. One of the topics I teach is the geologic history of Virginia. I do this...
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