CHUCK'S ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS

Category: Research

  • Rabble with a Cause- W&M Geology at Menokin

    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…

  • Endings and Beginnings

    Endings and Beginnings

    William & Mary’s class of 2015 has graduated. On Sunday morning the Geology department held its graduation reception, and the mood was suitably festive as our latest cohort of seniors took possession of their diplomas. As I noted in earlier posts, part of what makes a bachelor of science degree in Geology from William &…

  • Mystery at Midway Mills (Part 2)

    Mystery at Midway Mills (Part 2)

    In the last post I described how an old stone mill in the central Virginia Piedmont had disappeared. I discovered Midway Mills’ disappearance on a discouraging and wet field day in July 2012. Despite our first day setbacks, my research student Jacob Rosenthal (W&M ’13) carried on with his project. Ultimately, he discovered the quarries…

  • Mystery at Midway Mills

    Mystery at Midway Mills

    Virginia’s Piedmont is an expansive area of gently rolling terrain whose underlying geology is quite complex. The old metamorphic and igneous rocks of the Piedmont are cut and overlain by a series of basins into which sediment (now sedimentary rocks) accumulated during the Triassic and Jurassic periods (225 to 200 million years ago). These rift…

  • Field Methods 2014: Wrapping It Up

    Field Methods 2014: Wrapping It Up

    The last day of classes at William & Mary is traditionally a celebratory affair, and on the last day of class this fall we wrapped up the Field Methods course with a rowdy poster session where the results from our three field projects were presented. As I noted earlier this semester, Geology 311- Field Methods…

  • Field Methods 2014: Put Your Hiney in the Piney

    Field Methods 2014: Put Your Hiney in the Piney

    When many of my academic colleagues (both at W&M and further afield) learn that I write a blog it is commonly followed by an amused grin and a question along the line of “why besmirch yourself with a blog?” In the academy, peer-reviewed publications, primarily in academic journals and books, are the coin of the…

  • SNOMI – The Summer Nighttime Outdoor Misery Index

    SNOMI – The Summer Nighttime Outdoor Misery Index

    During the summer academic geologists commonly spend time in the field doing research; it’s one of the great things about studying the Earth. I’m fortunate to work on projects from Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to the deserts of Oman, and at many of our field sites we camp while conducting research. This summer, with the…

  • The Saddest Affair: A Geologic Perspective on the Battle of the Crater, U.S. Civil War

    The Saddest Affair: A Geologic Perspective on the Battle of the Crater, U.S. Civil War

    One hundred and fifty years ago this week a terrible and pernicious battle was fought at Petersburg, Virginia during the American Civil War. In the summer of 1864 the Confederate and Union armies were at a stalemate; dug in and facing each other across a long front. Lt. Colonel Henry Pleasants, a mining engineer from…

  • Summer Research: Stories from the Microscope

    Summer Research: Stories from the Microscope

    The Buckmarlson Banshees have spent much of the past seven weeks in the field working to understand the geology of the eastern Blue Ridge and western Piedmont. But this past week we came indoors and spent time observing our samples under the petrographic microscope. Earlier in the summer we cut rock samples into small chips…

  • Summer Research: Introducing the Buckmarlson Banshees

    Summer Research: Introducing the Buckmarlson Banshees

    Try to find Buckmarlson on a map and you won’t have much luck. It’s the newly created place name for our field area in Virginia’s west-central Piedmont. Buckmarlson is a portmanteau word we created based on the names of the three counties in which our geologic studies are taking place: Buckingham, Albemarle, and Nelson counties.…

  • The Longhill drainage ditch, when knickpoints move

    The Longhill drainage ditch, when knickpoints move

    Last Fall I started a ‘series’ focused on rivers and their watersheds. Six months have elapsed since that first post and another write up is overdue. Rivers and their drainage networks can conjure up images of adventure, mystery, and perhaps even romance. Consider the mighty Rio Orinoco with its waters plying the jungles of Venezuela…

  • Senior Research Saturday 2014

    Senior Research Saturday 2014

    The year-long senior research project is an important piece in the William & Mary Geology major. All W&M Geology majors complete an intensive independent project and in the process create new knowledge about the earth and the environment. The project culminates in a thesis and a professional-style presentation. For the past three years we’ve turned…

  • Rolling Deep with the Penrose Conference on Orogenic Systems

    Rolling Deep with the Penrose Conference on Orogenic Systems

    This past week I co-convened a Geological Society of America Penrose Conference focused on Feedbacks and Linkages in Orogenic Systems. An orogen is a geologic term for a mountain belt, and orogenesis describes the processes at work in mountain belts (derived from Greek- oros for “mountain” and genesis for “creation/origin”). The world’s great mountain belts…

  • Working in a Winter Wonderland: The Gravity of the Situation (Part 2)

    Working in a Winter Wonderland: The Gravity of the Situation (Part 2)

    Last summer I reported on our field research in the High Plateaus of Utah. Erika Wenrich’s senior thesis project involves a gravity survey aimed at estimating the amount of sediment beneath Fish Lake, a large alpine lake developed in a high-elevation graben. In June we measured gravity at a network of stations around Fish Lake,…

  • Glimpses of the Past: the Catoctin Formation – Virginia is for Lavas

    Glimpses of the Past: the Catoctin Formation – Virginia is for Lavas

    In 1969 Virginia embraced the travel slogan Virginia is for Lovers and at various times during the last 45 years William & Mary geology students have emblazoned departmental t-shirts with Virginia is for Lavas and turned the iconic heart into a volcano. In that spirit, Geology Fellow Alex Johnson and I wrote a piece on…