This month I was lucky enough to again participate in the “Anatomy of an Orogeny” field course in the Alps with the University of St Andrews. Last year I had four posts outlining our transect from Milan, Italy to Berne, Switerzland (clockwise from upper left: Sesia-Lanzo, Ivrea Verbano, Flysch and Molasse, Helvetic Nappes). This year we had great […]
A sand sea or erg is defined as an expanse of land covered with 125 square km. The Namib Sand Sea is the second largest in the world. It covers nearly 80 thousand square kilometers (nearly the size of Austria or South Carolina). From the mountains to the dunes to the ocean, it is home […]
For most geologists, thoughts of South Africa are comprised of kimberlites, chromite seams, and gold. This post has nothing to do with any of those things. Along the east coast of SA near Durban is a suite of Mesoproterozoic granitoids and high-grade metamorphic rocks called the Natal Belt that were emplaced during the collision of […]
The Gem State has more than gems (and potatoes). For the paleontologically inclined, Idaho also has an appreciable fossil record. Fossils range from the Precambrian to the Pleistocene, with fossils from all geological periods being reported. The only identifiable skeletal remains of dinosaurs known from Idaho are from the middle Cretaceous (latest Albian-Cenomanian stages, roughly […]
The Uinta Mountains are a large east-west trending mountain range (on of the few in North and South America). It is made of a 4-km thick Neoproterozoic siciliclastic succession. These strikingly monotonous sediments are hypothesized to record the development of a large E-W trending intracratonic basin during the early stages of the breakup of Rodinia. […]
