CHUCK'S ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS

  • Summer Research: It’s About Time

    Summer Research: It’s About Time

    Mid-summer is here, and it’s been a busy few weeks for my undergraduate research students. The 2018-19 William & Mary Structural Geology & Tectonics Research Group is focused on an array of projects with study sites from Europa (the satellite) to Oman and Virginia. This year we’re working to better understand when significant tectonic events…

  • When Things Turn Grim at Crim Dell

    When Things Turn Grim at Crim Dell

    Crim Dell is an iconic little pond tucked away in a forest glade in the middle of William & Mary’s campus. Its arched wooden bridge is frequently described as the most romantic spot on campus. Yet, that’s not the case this summer. Crim Dell has recently been drained, and its bottom is exposed for all…

  • 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…

  • A Flood of Fun: The W&M Geology Department Field Trip on the James River

    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…

  • A Decade’s Worth of Field Britches

    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…

  • North by Northeast to Norway: W&M Geology in the Lofoten Archipelago

    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…

  • Explorations in Time-Depth Space: The Earth Structure & Dynamics Field Trip 2017

    Explorations in Time-Depth Space: The Earth Structure & Dynamics Field Trip 2017

    The Earth Structure & Dynamics class field trip rolled west from Williamsburg to the Blue Ridge Mountains on a near perfect early spring weekend in late March. Once again it was time for our annual class field trip to examine rocks and structures in the field and make sense of the Appalachian orogen. On the…

  • The High and the Low

    The High and the Low

    The past month has been a blur as I’ve been away from campus most weekends doing geology with William & Mary students. I’m way behind getting these adventures posted, and this is the first in a series of posts intended to help me climb out of this virtual hole in the blogosphere. It’s been nearly…