Tag: structural geology
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20 Years of Teaching Structural Geology at William & Mary
‘Tis the season for grading final exams. Once the grading is complete, it’ll be time to determine who’s been naughty or nice, and dole out final course grades. In the Fall of 1996 I started teaching at William & Mary, and nearly every year for the past two decades I’ve taught a structural geology course.…
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Over the Hills and Far Away: The Earth Structure & Dynamics Field Trip 2015
The Earth Structure & Dynamics class field trip is a springtime ritual; last weekend we headed over the hills and far away. At our apogee, we were 233 km west-northwest of campus in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. With 43 of us packed into four vans, this was the largest Earth Structure & Dynamics field trip yet.…
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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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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: 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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Earth Structure & Dynamics: Dreaming in 3D
One of the courses I am teaching this term is Earth Structure & Dynamics (GEOL 323), a second-level geology course, and a required class for all Geology majors. This course combines structural geology, tectonics, geophysics, and a pinch of historical geology. Thirty-four students enrolled in this year’s class, that’s plenty, and free seats are hard…