Category: Study Away
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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…
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A Flood of Fun: The W&M Geology Department Field Trip on the James River
Our Fall Geology Department field trip set out from Williamsburg to central Virginia, and the James River for a geological float trip down the river. The autumn weather was close to perfect, and our crew of 30+ students were ready for a fluvial adventure. We camped at Hatton Ferry, pitching our tents on a patch…
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A Decade’s Worth of Field Britches
It’s mid-summer, and it is time for geological fieldwork with my undergraduate research students. As I’ve written before, geologists commonly go to the field to collect their primary data, and for William & Mary geologists, summer is a prime time to gather field data for Senior Research projects. The prudent geologist wears pants in the…
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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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North by Northeast to Norway: W&M Geology in the Lofoten Archipelago
W&M just finished its graduation celebration, and, as is a yearly tradition in the days after graduation, the Geology Department’s Regional Field Geology course (GEO 310) is off. This year we are headed in a different direction – as we’re traveling north by northeast to Norway, and we’ll be north of the Arctic Circle in…
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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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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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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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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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Mount William & Mary, Really?
Last week William & Mary News published a story about a second campaign to officially name a peak in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado Mount William & Mary. The mountain in question is a subordinate peak on Mount Elbert, the highest summit in the Rockies, that tops out at an elevation of 14,440’ (4,401…
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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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The Department that Floats Together…
The latest addition of the Geology departmental field trip rolled out of Williamsburg last Friday and then floated down the James River on Saturday. The weather in the Mid-Atlantic region was iffy. A stalled frontal system bolstered an on-shore flow of moist air, but a spot of rain here and there did not deter the…
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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…
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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…