Tag: Blue Ridge
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Bringing Back the Grenville! Preserving Virginia’s Geoheritage
Virginia has a rich geological heritage that stretches back well over a billion years to an era of geologic time known as the Mesoproterozoic. Rocks formed during the Mesoproterozoic are exposed primarily in the Blue Ridge Mountains and its foothills, as well as in curious inliers such as the Goochland domes and in the Sauratown…
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The Return of a Tradition – The Earth Structure & Dynamics Class Field Trip
An important tradition in my academic life is the Earth Structure & Dynamics class field trip. This weekend trip takes William & Mary students across the Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains to examine the geology underfoot in the Appalachians and, along the way, practice doing geology in the field. I’ve been running this trip for…
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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…
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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…
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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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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…
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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…
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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.…
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50 Hours in the Field: the Earth Structure & Dynamics Field Trip 2014
The 2014 Earth Structure & Dynamics class field trip left Williamsburg at 1 p.m. last Friday bound for the Blue Ridge Mountains and points beyond. We would not return to campus until 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, some 50 hours after our departure. The field trip is a spring tradition that’s been enjoyed by students…
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Glimpses of the Past: The Rockfish Conglomerate
My family has a tradition of going camping about once per semester. Back in the spring of 2011, as the Appalachians were beginning to green up, we headed west to Rockfish, Virginia for a weekend camping trip to my Uncle Joe’s farm. Joe’s farm is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and…
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Summer Research: Going with the Flow
In April I delivered a talk on “Finding Faults in Old Virginia” as part of William & Mary’s Tack Faculty Lecture Series. Our study of Virginia’s faults is ongoing and one current project is focused on the boundary between the Blue Ridge and Piedmont regions. Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains are underlain by a sequence of…
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Living the Dream: Back to Alberene
Remember the Alberene Dream Team from the summer of 2011? This talented group of undergraduates poured themselves into research projects aimed at understanding the geology of the eastern Blue Ridge Mountains that summer and continued their work as part of their senior research during the academic year. Alex Johnson, the youngest member of the Alberene…
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Mountain Mayhem
As I’ve noted in these posts before, Geology Departmental field trips are unique as they bring together the W&M geologic community in a way that staying on campus never could. The Fall Field trip took an enthusiastic crew of students and faculty to the Blue Ridge Mountains for a weekend getaway. Our timing was just…
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Making Hay with the Alberene Dream Team
August is here and a new semester looms just around the corner. As the old saying goes it is best “to make hay while the sun shines” and Alberene Dream Team did just that, they baled a bunch of “research hay” during their summer field campaign in the eastern Blue Ridge Mountains. Let’s review. The…
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Mid-Summer Dream Team Report
The Alberene Dream Team has left the building and is now safely ensconced back in the eastern Blue Ridge Mountains. The Dream Team took a well-earned respite from fieldwork last week to compile field data in the Geology Department. In my original post I noted that the Alberene Dream Team is conducting research in the…