Author: cmbail
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Over Nottoway Falls
Another glorious February weekend, and I was off, once again, to the field with my research students. On this trip we returned to the Falls of the Nottoway River to obtain more measurements and complete our mapping of this awesome exposure in the middle the Southside Virginia Piedmont. We brought a small friend with us,…
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Power-washing the Paleozoic Petersburg Pluton
300 million years ago, vast quantities of magma intruded the Earth’s crust deep beneath what would one day become Richmond, Virginia. The magma that reached the surface fed a legion of volcanoes which no doubt erupted their fiery wrath over Ol’ Virginny, but much of that magma crystallized at depth, forming granite with its distinctive…
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20 Years of Teaching Structural Geology at William & Mary
‘Tis the season for grading final exams. Once the grading is complete, it’ll be time to determine who’s been naughty or nice, and dole out final course grades. In the Fall of 1996 I started teaching at William & Mary, and nearly every year for the past two decades I’ve taught a structural geology course.…
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What a Difference a Day Makes: The Fall 2016 Geology Department Trip to Virginia’s Eastern Shore
The Geology Department successfully completed its Fall 2016 Departmental Trip to Virginia’s Eastern Shore last weekend, but the difference between Friday and Saturday were striking. On Friday afternoon we rolled off campus amidst bright sunshine, warm temperatures, and a gentle wind from the East. We were bound for Virginia’s Eastern Shore — the southern end…
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On the Rocks – A Day at Nottoway Falls
In August, I described a set of cascades that form a major knickpoint on the Nottoway River in the Southside Virginia Piedmont. Last Saturday, my Structural Geology Seminar spent a day on the rocks studying the geology of this expansive outcrop. The outcrop we focused on is the uppermost cascade which exposes ~2,000 m2 of…
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Let It Rain
I’m teaching Weather, Climate, & Change (pdf) – a COLL 100 course – to 40 enthusiastic students who are in their first semester at W&M. Nearly every day in class, I play the Song of the Day — it’s a musical interlude intended to add some rhythm to class (literally), and the song lyrics connect,…
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Knickpoint on the Nottoway
Deep in the heart of Southside Virginia lies a bedrock outcrop of tremendous size. Quality outcrops are rare in the Piedmont, but between the communities of Victoria and Crewe the Nottoway River tumbles over sloping bedrock ledges making a dramatic knickpoint that exposes acres of granitic gneiss in the channel. The Nottoway River is a…
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Reunited!
This is an ode to a canoe. A year ago today, on July 14th 2015, I abandoned my canoe in the James River at the base of the Fall Zone’s last rapid in downtown Richmond. The canoe was partially submerged and unceremoniously folded around a granitic outcrop. We were 180-km into a 300-km paddle trip…
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Summer Solstice in the Field: A River on Rock
Summer is not a quiet time in the William & Mary Geology department. Pop onto the 2nd floor of McGlothlin-Street Hall this summer and you’ll find a bevy of undergraduates pursuing research on an array of topics including paleoclimatology, geochemistry, petrology, hydrology, paleontology, coastal geology, and structural geology. After a few weeks of indoor work,…
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The Long and Winding Road: The Geology 310 Field Course 2016
I’ve just returned from our 2.5-week field course in the Southwestern United States. The 2016 version of Geology 310 started and finished in Las Vegas, making a 3,200 km (2,000 mile) loop across the Basin & Range and Colorado Plateau provinces. All together there were 27 of us, and we (and our gear) filled 3…
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Comfortably Disoriented in the Blue Ridge Mountains
Note: this post was written last September after the Fall 2015 Geology Department field trip, however it never got posted. As the Spring semester comes to a close I thought it was time to stop being a slacker and post this long overdue field trip report! Last week I spent much time at administrative meetings…
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4th Rock from the Sun: Human Exploration of Mars – the Planetary Geology Research Projects 2016
Forty years ago, in the summer of 1976, NASA placed two spacecraft in orbit around Mars and then safely got the Viking 1 and 2 landers to the surface. I was all of 8 years old, but have a distant memory of those the first images from the Martian surface being broadcast over the evening…
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A Hard Freeze in the Basement: The Earth Structure & Dynamics Field Trip 2016
The Earth Structure & Dynamics class field trip is an annual rite of spring; when early April arrives it’s time for our weekend trip to explore the geologic structures of the Piedmont and Blue Ridge regions. A week ago Saturday, we were rolling deep with 36 students and two TAs. We departed from Williamsburg on…
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Rock Music Oman
Oh man, what a time we had in Oman! We are back from our first William & Mary study abroad program in Oman. The course, entitled Natural History and Contemporary Culture of Oman (a.k.a. Rock Music Oman), was led by myself and Music Professor Anne Rasmussen. The course enrolled 15 intrepid students and we spent…
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A Capital Time! The William & Mary Geology Reception in Washington, D.C.
The Geology Department puts together annual receptions for our alumni at both the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union meetings during the Fall semester. It is a great way to connect with Geology alums that are graduate students, academics, or geoscience researchers. But our graduates go on to a diverse array of…
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Rabble with a Cause- W&M Geology at Menokin
Menokin is an 18th Century Georgian-style plantation house on Virginia’s Northern Neck, which was the residence of Francis Lightfoot Lee and Rebecca Tayloe Lee. Back in 1776 Francis Lightfoot Lee was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but today his house lies partially in ruins, as much of the structure collapsed in the mid-20th…
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College 100 – A Name on the Wind
William & Mary’s class of 2019 is the first to embark upon the new College Curriculum. The new curriculum requires all students to complete a COLL 100 course during their first year at W&M. COLL 100 courses are 4-credit classes that are about big questions and big ideas — the significant concepts, beliefs and creative…
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Paddle Trip Report 3 – The Long Dash for Home
The last post ended with my canoe trapped and broken on a granite outcrop at the base of the Fall Zone in Richmond, Virginia. I was on an 8-day journey by canoe from the Blue Ridge Foothills to Williamsburg; a middle-aged journey to mark the 30th anniversary of my arrival as a student at William…