CHUCK'S ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS

Category: Academics

  • Neoacadian Poets in the Blue Ridge

    Neoacadian Poets in the Blue Ridge

    Every spring my Earth Structure & Dynamics class visits the Appalachian Mountains on our weekend field trip. The goals of the trip are twofold: 1) practice doing structural geology in the field, and 2) decipher the geologic history of the Appalachians. It’s easy to achieve the first goal, as over the course of the weekend…

  • On the Road Again

    On the Road Again

    Last week much of the William & Mary Geology department hit the road again en route to the Geological Society of America’s Southeastern Section meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. It’s an annual spring ritual for W&M Geology students as this meeting is well-timed and can be the perfect venue in which to present research to…

  • Geologists Siege Yorktown

    Geologists Siege Yorktown

    Yorktown’s most famous siege took place in 1781, when American and French troops surrounded General Cornwallis and the British forces. Ultimately, the British capitulated and the American Revolution was effectively won at Yorktown – it was a big deal. For more than a decade now, William & Mary geologists have repeatedly sieged Yorktown during the…

  • W&M Geology Celebrates 100 Years of Women

    W&M Geology Celebrates 100 Years of Women

    Homecoming 2018 has come and gone. The Geology Department kicked off the weekend early with a celebration of its own – we invited our alums and friends to campus to highlight the achievements of W&M women geoscientists. Our celebration was a unique part of the year-long series of university-wide events that celebrate 100 Years of…

  • Hurrication at William & Mary: from Gloria to Florence

    Hurrication at William & Mary: from Gloria to Florence

    Last week William & Mary closed up shop and students were sent packing due to the threat from Hurricane Florence. This semester I’m teaching Weather, Climate, & Change (GEOL 100) and the Earth’s Environmental Systems (GEOL 110), in both courses we discuss hurricanes (typically at mid-semester). For obvious reasons, Hurricane Week 2018 came early. On…

  • Up, Up and Away

    Up, Up and Away

    Summer is over. Although the astronomical summer lasts until the autumnal equinox in late September, and the meteorological summer has a few more days left (until the end of August) – summer is over for me. Replaced by the realities of a new academic year. To celebrate summer’s end, I took in one more outdoor…

  • A 10-year Time Series

    A 10-year Time Series

    On August 4th, 2008, I published my first post on William & Mary Blogs, Living the High Life chronicled that summer’s field research with a crew of William & Mary geologists on Utah’s High Plateaus. 10-years have come-and-gone – yikes! My 10th blog post dropped on Charter Day 2009, the 50th rolled out just before…

  • Geology’s Senior Research Saturday 2018: Standing Room Only

    Geology’s Senior Research Saturday 2018: Standing Room Only

    The 3rd Saturday in April is a big day in the William & Mary Geology department as it is Senior Research Saturday, a day in which the Geology seniors present the results of their thesis research to our departmental community and the public. The day-long symposium includes oral presentations, some lively question-and-answer exchanges, a catered…

  • Rising from the Coastal Plain: A Proper Mt. William & Mary!

    Rising from the Coastal Plain: A Proper Mt. William & Mary!

    Over the years I’ve used this blog to report on geologic research in a format that’s intended to be both accessible and digestible by a wide audience. This post highlights an exciting new research finding, and explores the intriguing possibilities for William & Mary that could come from this ground-breaking discovery. First, a little background:…

  • Inside the Ghubrah Bowl, Oman: dropstones, double-duckbills, and pencil structures, oh my!

    Inside the Ghubrah Bowl, Oman: dropstones, double-duckbills, and pencil structures, oh my!

    In early January, with two of my research students, we escaped winter’s cold by heading to the Sultanate of Oman for a week of field research. Oman is a delightful place, and even more so in January with its warm temperatures and cheery sunshine. What follows is the first of three posts that will highlight…

  • From the Tunnel to the Temple

    From the Tunnel to the Temple

    The W&M Geology Department’s spring field trip dashed out of Williamsburg on Saturday for a one-day jaunt from the Tunnel to the Temple. The tunnel is the Blue Ridge Tunnel that Claudius Crozet engineered beneath Rockfish Gap in the 1850s. The temple is the LOTUS (Light Of Truth Universal Shrine) temple that forms the centerpiece…

  • A Structural Geology Trifecta

    A Structural Geology Trifecta

    Saturday found the 2017 W&M Geological Field Methods course in the field. This year’s class is composed of 16 junior and senior geology majors, and our field projects have taken us from the College Woods to the Fall Zone to the Blue Ridge Mountains. One of our Blue Ridge projects is focused on mapping the…

  • How Our Garden Grows: The William & Mary Geology Rock Garden

    How Our Garden Grows: The William & Mary Geology Rock Garden

    William & Mary sits squarely on the the Atlantic Coastal Plain, a region underlain by geologically young sand, silt, clay, and gravel. Many of these geological layers are fossiliferous, and even on campus we can find the preserved remains of 4 million-year old clams and scallops. What we don’t have is easy access to rocks,…

  • Stand and Deliver: W&M Geology leads the Virginia Geological Field Conference

    Stand and Deliver: W&M Geology leads the Virginia Geological Field Conference

    I spent the front end of Fall Break herding more than 100 geologists across the Blue Ridge at the 47th Virginia Geological Field Conference. It is an annual meeting of academics, professionals, students, and rockhounds that gather to learn about new geological research in the Commonwealth. It was a special trip for me as two…