Category: Global Engagement
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William & Mary Returns to Oman
In January 2020, I co-led the William & Mary study abroad program to Oman (commonly known as Rock Music Oman). As we returned home from that program, little did we know that we were weeks away from a pandemic that would shutter the world and effectively limit global travel for over two years. It’s January…
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Rock Music Oman 2020 – The Crescent of Learning
I’m homeward bound after the 2020 edition of our Natural History & Contemporary Culture of Oman (a.k.a. Rock Music Oman) course. For the past two weeks, 23 intrepid W&M students joined us for a scholarly, but adventurous, study tour across the Sultanate of Oman. This year’s course was spectacular, but distinctly different than previous years’…
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Rock Music Oman 2019: A Symposium and Celebration
The 2019 Spring semester is underway, but before we (both students and faculty) get completely sucked into our courses we’re going to finish our 2019 Rock Music Oman program with a symposium and celebration on Wednesday, January 30th from 6 to 8 p.m. in McGlothlin-Street Hall 219. Everybody is invited as the event is open…
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Finding Ourselves in the Sharqiya Sands, Oman
The 2019 Rock Music Oman program has traversed from Muscat through the mountains and on to the desert. Last week, we were tucked in at a desert camp in the Sharqiya Sands, a vast dune complex, for a day of rest and reflection. Our respite provided an excellent opportunity for us to find ourselves, literally.…
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Rock Music Oman – The 2019 Edition Begins
We’re back in Oman with the 2019 version of our Natural History and Contemporary Culture of Oman (a.k.a. Rock Music Oman) winter-break study program. It may be gray and wintery in Williamsburg, but the skies over Oman are blue and the temperature is close to perfect. Twenty-one intrepid William & Mary students left the States…
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Why William & Mary? People & Places
Why choose to attend William & Mary? I’ll offer up two reasons to attend William & Mary: people & places. The W&M Geology Department provides a prime example of just why William & Mary is special. At William & Mary, the Geology department takes a broad view on the Earth, offering courses that focus on…
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Snow on Eclogite: W&M Geology in Norway
We’ve just finished our first William & Mary Geology 310 course to Norway. For 11 days, 16 students and two Geology faculty trekked around and over the Lofoten Islands. This post highlights the last half of our trip. On Friday, May 26th we took our longest road trip from our base in Henningsvær journeying west…
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Skerries and Moraines: W&M Geology in Norway
The Geology 310 course has been in Norway for nearly a week, and we are enjoying the diverse terrain of the Lofoten Islands. The weather has been suitably pleasant, it is downright mild by Arctic standards with an ever-changing mixture of clouds, bits of sun, and only a few spots of light rain (thus far).…
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Oman’s Geological Triple Point
Qantab is a village at the eastern edge of the Muscat metropolitan area, it’s hemmed in by steep rocky hills, and flanked by a broad strand that faces out to the Gulf of Oman. It is one of my favorite spots in Oman, and I recently visited Qantab with my research students on a Spring…
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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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The Road to the Moho
I spent last week in the Sultanate of Oman, working with my colleague Professor Anne Rasmussen to setup a William & Mary study abroad program that we’ll run in January 2016. For much of the trip we were based in Muscat, meeting with our Omani colleagues to hammer out program logistics. With each passing day…
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Wadi Bani Ghafir at Sidaq Gorge – Water versus Rock in Oman
In January I had the good fortune of visiting Oman to explore the country’s magnificent geology. November 18th is Oman’s National Day and in this post I’d like to celebrate an Omani drainage basin: Wadi Bani Ghafir is a watershed in the mountainous terrain of northern Oman that heads about ~10 km (6 mi.) south…
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Oman’s Mega-Sheath Folds
Oman is a sunny place and cloudy days are rather uncommon. On Friday, January 10th we awoke to cloudy skies over Muscat. Today was the day to tackle “the exposure” at Wadi Mayh about 25 km (19 mi.) south of Muscat. Wadi Mayh is a through-going drainage that offers tremendous exposures of bedrock in its…
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Dispatches from Oman: Juxtaposition
A new semester awaits 11,000 kilometers away in Williamsburg. Time to depart Oman, but before heading west towards home there was one last mountain to climb. I’ve had my eye on this ridge at the north end of Jebel Akhdar for months, as the view from its crest should provide an exceptional overview of the…
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Dispatches from Oman: Fodder for the Tectonic Cannon
I’ve been in Oman for over ten days and seen plenty of deformed rocks—it is what I came for. What follows are a series of images illustrating deformed Omani rocks: there are folds, faults, fractures, and veins. This stuff is eye candy for a structural geologist. This first photo is a stitched panorama using our…
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Dispatches from Oman: We’re with the Band
After four days of field work in the Western Hajar Mountains, Alex and I returned to Muscat to get clean and then joined up with William & Mary’s Middle Eastern Music Ensemble. Professor Anne Rasmussen directs this talented group of musicians who’ve been exploring and performing the music of the Middle East since 1994. Seven…
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Dispatches from Oman: Wadi Jizzi – standing at the bottom of the Tethys Ocean
Our travels in Oman took us north from the capital region in Muscat to Sohar, a drive of some two hours along the Batinah Coastal Plain. This coastal plain is just that, a low relief plain sloping towards the Gulf of Oman and underlain by relatively young (Tertiary to Holocene) sedimentary rocks and sediments. The…
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Dispatches from Oman: Ophiolite to Aflaj
The New Year finds me half-a-world away from William & Mary on a research trip to Oman. I am here starting a project focused on Oman’s spectacular geology and also laying the groundwork for a W&M study abroad field program that will focus on Oman’s iconic geology, its desert environment and distinctive culture. This trip…