tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16441837007982638752024-03-18T23:14:19.239-04:00Hudson Valley GeologistRandom thoughts and opinions of a community college geology professor living in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York State.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.comBlogger784125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-30025244166639260752024-03-03T17:43:00.001-05:002024-03-03T17:43:16.997-05:00Giant Beavers!<p>Did you know there were once giant beavers roaming the Hudson Valley region?</p><p>Bear-sized giant beavers (<i>Castoroides ohioensis</i>) lived during the Pleistocene Epoch (the time of the most recent ice age) and grew to over 7 feet in length with a weight of over 200 pounds. As their scientific name implies, they were first discovered in Ohio (1837) but extended from the upper Midwest and Canada over to the east coast (another species - <i>Castoroides dilophidus</i> - existed in the southeastern U.S.).</p><p>Giant beavers did exist in the Hudson Valley. One, for example, was discovered (along with caribou and flat-headed peccary fossils) at the Dutchess Quarry Cave site near Middletown in Orange County (near where a lot of mastodons have also been discovered). At this site, the beaver radiocarbon dated to 11,670 +/-70 years before present.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8__5FbByk7JfZy2KIvcczkA8cBkxYLnsw2f82oZTwPtqrXhONCEvkKAqoAR0TOgmS69NWrv-8fbkccxh45gCU_T9fsTRzPhmob8bo6iSux4Yj1Oif9lgHqW-hu2ezkn_UzoxUV7PELljtQkGCFEmcJCXv9udTS0U78C1JNVdhuJAR54vY4v-zAPe4CNk/s2112/Giant-beaver-fieldmuseum.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1176" data-original-width="2112" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8__5FbByk7JfZy2KIvcczkA8cBkxYLnsw2f82oZTwPtqrXhONCEvkKAqoAR0TOgmS69NWrv-8fbkccxh45gCU_T9fsTRzPhmob8bo6iSux4Yj1Oif9lgHqW-hu2ezkn_UzoxUV7PELljtQkGCFEmcJCXv9udTS0U78C1JNVdhuJAR54vY4v-zAPe4CNk/w400-h223/Giant-beaver-fieldmuseum.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: left;">Castoroides ohioensis</i><span style="text-align: left;"> skeleton in the Field Museum, Chicago</span></div><div><br /></div>Here's an artist's conception by the famous early 20th century illustrator Charles R. Knight.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFfxbTOpeRt8worELmhnXbGT45M5Y-FQ5SZLF4m29U-GLsaF5Izdrdr-tR6H53h8OxlMC5XciroNi9EL-INQQl1vngXTXsQVXMwKlg4Q1XvMbBx69dsILEPivKmwUFWS4Astm6oMXAa5enBHqQQunXNsq7mD_CwMTbPsxzFE2W0RM6Pm5KkWBi420t39Q/s1242/Castoroides_Knight.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1242" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFfxbTOpeRt8worELmhnXbGT45M5Y-FQ5SZLF4m29U-GLsaF5Izdrdr-tR6H53h8OxlMC5XciroNi9EL-INQQl1vngXTXsQVXMwKlg4Q1XvMbBx69dsILEPivKmwUFWS4Astm6oMXAa5enBHqQQunXNsq7mD_CwMTbPsxzFE2W0RM6Pm5KkWBi420t39Q/w400-h330/Castoroides_Knight.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>The giant beaver differed from modern beavers in that they probably had rounded tails and not the flattened ones seen today and also in their teeth. Their teeth were much longer (up to 6 inches) and were ridged unlike the smooth teeth of modern beavers. These ridges would have strengthened their teeth and their jaw structure suggests that they would have had a strong biting force. It's hard to say if they constructed dams and lodges as beavers do today and stable isotope evidence from their bones indicates a mostly aquatic plant diet. Their large teeth were likely better adapted to digging in pond muck than in cutting trees.</div><div><br /></div><div>Giant beavers first appear in the fossil record near the start of the Pleistocene ice age almost 2 million years ago and died out around 11,000 years ago as the North American climate was warming and glaciers had retreated north. The end of their time also overlapped with the migration of paleo-Indians into eastern North America. Did they die off due to climate change or did humans kill them off? This is the perennial question of all the Pleistocene megafauna which vanished around the same time.</div><div><br /></div><div>While there is no direct evidence these early Native Americans hunted giant beavers (although it seems unlikely they would not have utilized all food source animals) some of the tribes have stories and legends that seem to be about them (it's amazing to think about oral traditions lasting thousands of years). They feature in an eastern Cree creation story and in tales by the Chippewa, Seneca, and other tribes (see, for example, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/481746">https://www.jstor.org/stable/481746</a>).</div><div><br /></div><div>The Hudson Valley was a very different place just a few thousand years ago!</div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-55701170268544822582024-02-26T14:42:00.003-05:002024-02-26T14:43:21.179-05:00Learning from the past<p>There was a recent paper in <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adk1189"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science Advances</i></a> that’s gotten a lot of press lately. It
discusses the possible collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning
circulation (AMOC) due to warming from climate change. This is not a new idea,
here’s a July 2023 paper in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nature Communications</i></a> saying the same thing (and forecasting a
timeline between 2025 and the end of the century).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Basically, colder and more saline ocean water is more dense
than warmer and less saline ocean water and these density differences lead to
the development of areas of sinking water which drive deep currents (called
thermohaline currents). These thermohaline currents are effectively mixing
oceanic waters around the globe and hugely important in global climate.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the AMOC, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current
bring warmer waters from the equatorial regions northward. At higher latitudes,
this now colder water sinks down to drive deep thermohaline currents
circulating water back south. If global temperatures continue to warm, the
melting Greenland ice cap will dump enough freshwater into the North Atlantic
to potentially disrupt the AMOC. This will have profound climatic implications
for all of us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Geologists, who have a longer view of things, know that the
AMOC hasn’t always existed and there have been times during the last ice age
when it has repeatedly collapsed and restarted. One of those times it collapsed
may be tied to events right here in the Hudson Valley.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Some papers have suggested that a time known as the
Intra-Allerød cold period that began around 13,360 years before present (B.P.)
was due to temporary collapse of the AMOC. As the mighty continental glaciers
melted back into Canada around 13,400 B.P., large amounts of meltwater were
flowing south down through the Hudson Valley. Glacial moraines (ridges of
glacial sediment called till) formed dams down by the Hudson Highlands formed a
large freshwater lake called Lake Albany. Lake Albany was over 150 miles long
and over 200 feet deep in places.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj89jfp9b9ihIxmnsJV62nig-IFzbwKELSJ277Xi2cnmePN0XqI-l4OBwkrv0otMBDxC8FoyspgNO5CTVTi_8e64zfAKdKgvobzGm4ps8puEpYj1GePmj4fzxQnP_PyxKyKwtpj6bHepUmHktB7sFtY_iQjQlhn2cak6nOfRmkeNcaRLbaFLNqVYMNTz8Y/s709/HV%20Flood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="709" data-original-width="550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj89jfp9b9ihIxmnsJV62nig-IFzbwKELSJ277Xi2cnmePN0XqI-l4OBwkrv0otMBDxC8FoyspgNO5CTVTi_8e64zfAKdKgvobzGm4ps8puEpYj1GePmj4fzxQnP_PyxKyKwtpj6bHepUmHktB7sFtY_iQjQlhn2cak6nOfRmkeNcaRLbaFLNqVYMNTz8Y/w310-h400/HV%20Flood.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Image from <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/press-room/news-release/catastrophic-flooding-from-ancient-lake-may-have-triggered-cold-period/">Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institute</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><p>Also dammed up was what’s now Lake Ontario. It was much
larger at this time and called Lake Iroquois (misspelled in the diagram below).
Eventually Lake Iroquois broke through the dam and massive amounts of meltwater
raced down the Hudson Valley and into the Atlantic Ocean (the whole story is a
bit more complicated but you get the picture). There is evidence for this event
both in the sediments of the Hudson Valley as well as features on the
continental shelf seafloor out from the mouth of the Hudson River.</p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p> The hypothesis is that this massive influx of freshwater
disrupted the AMOC and led to a cooling period known in paleoclimatology as the
Intra-Allerød cold period. It’s not fully accepted due to difficulties in
getting exact dates and correlations for events occurring thousands of year
ago, but certainly an intriguing hypothesis and perhaps indicative of events
going on in the present day with the Greenland ice cap.</p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p> It also shows how the study of geology can help us understand
events occurring in the modern day.</p></div>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-82466912597618923062024-02-18T00:00:00.003-05:002024-02-18T00:00:00.133-05:00New Plates<p> Just a short post today...</p><p>The Hudson Valley Geologist's wife bought me new customized license plates for Valentine's Day. I love them!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi55XlpxXFNJpypU7giJU7I63kj95UjseiLvmv6T8vTwRj5YGAQ5hA3PW7BdbeVUUY7TukSkKAiHexZT-BgCfNbAuasyJs--D8wekm6X3jDv0Belu1d98ZlgdsRPq-zJj0nCWtOAqZlZcbSwup8BDqxvJTMzGPJjN1pvtKb4yoKAr6btuW9mG1BX3fIOho" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="716" data-original-width="869" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi55XlpxXFNJpypU7giJU7I63kj95UjseiLvmv6T8vTwRj5YGAQ5hA3PW7BdbeVUUY7TukSkKAiHexZT-BgCfNbAuasyJs--D8wekm6X3jDv0Belu1d98ZlgdsRPq-zJj0nCWtOAqZlZcbSwup8BDqxvJTMzGPJjN1pvtKb4yoKAr6btuW9mG1BX3fIOho=w400-h330" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-83894569278620173652024-02-11T00:00:00.128-05:002024-02-11T00:00:00.151-05:00Obsidian<p>If you frequent certain areas of social media, or visit new age mineral shops, you may have seen stuff touted as obsidian that is nothing but colored glass.</p><p>Real obsidian is volcanic glass. It's formed from volcanic eruptions when lava (molten rock) cools so quickly minerals don't have time to nucleate and grow. Most obsidian is black and glassy with distinctive conchoidal fracture.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi08kfc0KsBvj2KoWJwSfOt5nIl5c7NFIBjV_j5yMr8xpKE3Tc6N0sNbBJ5cbHDRprrQeWEHPuYYeU0j2DjKhvWxAqddwZucas0sY3zcbwjqu9dhz88mF9pG_fsFOdQ8Uqu4uLEv5NthCtOPEKpNGexYQ7S6gJDmBoRfwZamYZjRIBOHX6GMyby9rTb-kU/s1374/X1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1374" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi08kfc0KsBvj2KoWJwSfOt5nIl5c7NFIBjV_j5yMr8xpKE3Tc6N0sNbBJ5cbHDRprrQeWEHPuYYeU0j2DjKhvWxAqddwZucas0sY3zcbwjqu9dhz88mF9pG_fsFOdQ8Uqu4uLEv5NthCtOPEKpNGexYQ7S6gJDmBoRfwZamYZjRIBOHX6GMyby9rTb-kU/w400-h306/X1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Conchoidal fracture can be seen in the sample above and is the curved, shell-like way obsidian (and other glass) breaks leaving sharp edges. Native people around the world took advantage of this fracture pattern to use obsidian to make knives and spear tips.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrt_N-6XOEAD1UvONwFNT-ef5lFivVy7oALUdlDs6exttvNgDmJrpM67Msh7S8tsXn1dL9X5l2Wn69RbprZmYylKOAAd5szm4Pwk8cTJxpTtODMzt_iA-ryxNdHUXQgoRtpYsdXnWqpH-rLH6Qcq9yuoFfY0NyoZHOU_7CbWUlV_KvKHFMFUbtIbL6Qo/s960/X2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="960" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSrt_N-6XOEAD1UvONwFNT-ef5lFivVy7oALUdlDs6exttvNgDmJrpM67Msh7S8tsXn1dL9X5l2Wn69RbprZmYylKOAAd5szm4Pwk8cTJxpTtODMzt_iA-ryxNdHUXQgoRtpYsdXnWqpH-rLH6Qcq9yuoFfY0NyoZHOU_7CbWUlV_KvKHFMFUbtIbL6Qo/w400-h228/X2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Some obsidian has inclusions of a white mineral called cristobalite (a form of quartz) leading it to be called snowflake obsidian which is very pretty when tumbled or carved.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiLMKr0gChiKhSEMDF5gFQEKOX5Dc3gzg4QW83ZoZeH95wIkL2qg0Zfo8TCDSp89MH-dAah1YkoHoJ2xR2CF7BHCybM5TuOQkBir4aC2T8AI2EBNvmzibJcQ3SNVxK4WoLbN3BgoRPu6W8sPwtca7GOaGTFxWjnz9d3uQnzmt-wtln-5KPqsYMe1oratM/s1200/X3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiLMKr0gChiKhSEMDF5gFQEKOX5Dc3gzg4QW83ZoZeH95wIkL2qg0Zfo8TCDSp89MH-dAah1YkoHoJ2xR2CF7BHCybM5TuOQkBir4aC2T8AI2EBNvmzibJcQ3SNVxK4WoLbN3BgoRPu6W8sPwtca7GOaGTFxWjnz9d3uQnzmt-wtln-5KPqsYMe1oratM/w400-h400/X3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Mahogany obsidian has a brown coloration from some trapped iron oxide in the rock.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4iSL5vJhd4w1cTettY9uXmnuVOiwVlp7x0EZjbtOsbQV5_OTXc-27ABJjPYTFOV1FKXoANEkBiSzT7_Vev6AsBR3mhM52UfiSYhtK8IxGGyrsoR48pq29fbbWpS5v05MyYUNU7lQJqUP7j8K2lXYYIQo3ZBN0r8mMar5LL0Byg8jxJqJOnxw6SOHbnUI/s803/X4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="803" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4iSL5vJhd4w1cTettY9uXmnuVOiwVlp7x0EZjbtOsbQV5_OTXc-27ABJjPYTFOV1FKXoANEkBiSzT7_Vev6AsBR3mhM52UfiSYhtK8IxGGyrsoR48pq29fbbWpS5v05MyYUNU7lQJqUP7j8K2lXYYIQo3ZBN0r8mMar5LL0Byg8jxJqJOnxw6SOHbnUI/w400-h265/X4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>There are also some rare varieties of obsidian (sheen, rainbow, or fire obsidian) that show a metallic sheen or colorful iridescence. This is usually from microscopic gas bubbles or different mineral inclusions that reflect various wavelengths of light.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi997K3ryX52P_pJsFGEL1eBYJnHztyR9XTISHoHlDKNegiM5_CiyaZOPfQrN1FTNWVrfqJumB44EIMe3JfiP9ubsVcV63W1A-1XPCKIi-F7mnMkqZ4aQ6XafFc_ULvxF9vXP7NH41zWJYHna3-QKbLnARf8d_jt8Nx6XKfhHImdKUzeTAaqL6GCp3UkvQ/s1080/X1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="1080" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi997K3ryX52P_pJsFGEL1eBYJnHztyR9XTISHoHlDKNegiM5_CiyaZOPfQrN1FTNWVrfqJumB44EIMe3JfiP9ubsVcV63W1A-1XPCKIi-F7mnMkqZ4aQ6XafFc_ULvxF9vXP7NH41zWJYHna3-QKbLnARf8d_jt8Nx6XKfhHImdKUzeTAaqL6GCp3UkvQ/w400-h335/X1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>When visiting metaphysical shops that sell crystals, as I'm wont to do out of curiosity (I usually don't buy from them because I can go to rock and mineral shows and buy genuine samples at a fraction of the price), I have started seeing a lot of colored glass being sold as "obsidian". Here are some examples from Etsy.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpXmngRJQbCnllz6mJAlAnUHHNIIWRDbOKrvaj6TJg3iW8yImWj4jXZ0qL5z_llymyY_rzfK4dw4q1xW0G1u1hnsAkofuw35DLbHxkt_rsHIW-ryotU_hj1FoxGBJ6cjR5KzFzt8ah4HqEp9fh6DX6CTznAx4Sjba3oc4p8eBVAIouMvKKfDew1ggU-pg/s442/X3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="384" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpXmngRJQbCnllz6mJAlAnUHHNIIWRDbOKrvaj6TJg3iW8yImWj4jXZ0qL5z_llymyY_rzfK4dw4q1xW0G1u1hnsAkofuw35DLbHxkt_rsHIW-ryotU_hj1FoxGBJ6cjR5KzFzt8ah4HqEp9fh6DX6CTznAx4Sjba3oc4p8eBVAIouMvKKfDew1ggU-pg/w348-h400/X3.jpg" width="348" /></a></div><br /><div>While marketed as obsidian, and sometimes priced at hundreds of dollars, these are really just hunks of colored glass. They're usually formed as a by-product of steel manufacturing and found in industrial dumps. One variety that I know of is artificially manufactured from Mt St Helens ash (Helenite) and sold as natural. It about as natural as your kitchen window.</div><div><br /></div><div>These are often marketed as Andara crystal, blue, green, or red obsidian, Gaia obsidian, Aqua Lemuria, and other made-up names with sometimes outrageous magical claims associated. Break a green beer bottle if you want some green glass - it will have about the same healing energy as these "crystals" and you can drink the beer beforehand.</div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-92107861873569240562024-02-04T00:00:00.002-05:002024-02-04T00:00:00.254-05:00Wallace Creek and the San Andreas Fault<p> This post is about an area a little far afield from the Hudson Valley but about a geologically significant area - it's featured in the lab manual I use for my <i>Physical Geology</i> course at SUNY Ulster. It's about a place I visited on vacation a couple of years ago.</p><p>Wallace Creek is on the Carizzo Plain halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, east of the Coast Range, and in a dry, arid desert environment. I drove 7 miles or so down a dirt road to get there. (why I own an all-wheel drive vehicle with high clearance!).</p><p>What makes Wallace Creek so interesting is that it crosses the San Andreas Fault - the boundary between the North American tectonic plate and the Pacific tectonic plate. The Pacific Plate is trying to move northwards with respect to the North American Plate and, after stresses build up for a while, it eventually slips along one segment or another generating an earthquake (sometimes a large one).</p><p>On January 9, 1857, this segment of the fault actually moved 6 meters (20 feet or so) during the 7.9 magnitude Fort Tejon earthquake. As the fault moves over the years (centuries), the creek has become offset where it crosses the fault clearly showing the direction and magnitude of movement.</p><p>Here's a nice aerial view of the offset.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9zFp5-0Rhor9J604WFWzJ44_XahsqKJOgKBlwDKjT7aDekrjq4glDfR24toZowlT7WPAYJJmP3gHrgFJCyKrPTL5-HGKSjvl88DtXcFjewX5NmgY1TJ1D2OkoZ34-kLQYwD_GMM9sgoCmQB6GBUIUrISJV7KwohMcBau7eVfL8SC72kpylnvPk-NviI/s576/XX.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="576" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9zFp5-0Rhor9J604WFWzJ44_XahsqKJOgKBlwDKjT7aDekrjq4glDfR24toZowlT7WPAYJJmP3gHrgFJCyKrPTL5-HGKSjvl88DtXcFjewX5NmgY1TJ1D2OkoZ34-kLQYwD_GMM9sgoCmQB6GBUIUrISJV7KwohMcBau7eVfL8SC72kpylnvPk-NviI/w400-h272/XX.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p>This view is looking south. On the left is the North American Plate and on the right is the Pacific Plate. You can clearly see the offset of Wallace Creek in the center of the photo with the Pacific Plate moving north (toward the bottom of the photo). The fault scarp of the San Andreas is clearly visible.</p><p>What's it look like on the ground? Below is the interpretive sign at the parking area.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwflEY7WdWfk22B6Zm_zIW4u54zq6GAwnUCCgFTjcGBJmezi372nejtQiAEOT9tdUx2TjMJT23vGKOqo1cvm5FmCn7x4Oi5FsS1D21DpZNiRYBzUsNkMqHAmVckE0SBG4WKB4y2FMidENpGewnCBCpuKqgmXER5rRWUcotnm31LmxdEai5zlYjPLUDBUA/s960/X1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwflEY7WdWfk22B6Zm_zIW4u54zq6GAwnUCCgFTjcGBJmezi372nejtQiAEOT9tdUx2TjMJT23vGKOqo1cvm5FmCn7x4Oi5FsS1D21DpZNiRYBzUsNkMqHAmVckE0SBG4WKB4y2FMidENpGewnCBCpuKqgmXER5rRWUcotnm31LmxdEai5zlYjPLUDBUA/w400-h300/X1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Here's a look back to the parking area (two black dots) from the creek. My wife and stepson stayed in the car with the AC running because it was around 100 degrees F (the Hudson Valley Geologist is made of sterner stuff and will suffer for geology). The white in the distance is a soda (alkaline) lake bed. The path to the left follows the fault scarp of the San Andreas Fault.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV6ZCHe7yHC9Jw9fa4n__mi5KRS6Y4ikYo8LV9dHnYHLW1EyGsqEwzuaMCDVeqVUXA_7Ndj4lTfJ-ebys6V0g-7yOUPlC8w37K6ucMzwOzwLNKMwUlIG0Eqsde5xpOKSlxJQmtaTQvPtOlqYyyE4Os3uFEDt0CAOOz8x14NQ2HwsFPNJGjpt0WMtRC2ek/s960/X2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV6ZCHe7yHC9Jw9fa4n__mi5KRS6Y4ikYo8LV9dHnYHLW1EyGsqEwzuaMCDVeqVUXA_7Ndj4lTfJ-ebys6V0g-7yOUPlC8w37K6ucMzwOzwLNKMwUlIG0Eqsde5xpOKSlxJQmtaTQvPtOlqYyyE4Os3uFEDt0CAOOz8x14NQ2HwsFPNJGjpt0WMtRC2ek/w400-h300/X2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>The feature is a bit difficult to see from a ground picture, but the creek is running away from me here (it's dry but marked by the greenery in the ditch). In the distance it bends left (onto the Pacific Plate) and in the foreground where I'm standing it turns right onto the North American Plate (off the picture). Looking straight ahead (north) is looking along the axis of the San Andreas Plate.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPhXQPS3B7jKKn3sjnDnYsxUGddZxHJSiCk1zxytyZMF9lSKn0JnM4j1C9xDDxOy33pkQXBrzKNyaJu9fU0ElPHy489nIwr4xJj3nLdAJcXNieHjKszdhf6seNRxk3yZ6gRdSx5aTFGqyde-Fd3-7vXq6Ji9lRIGIXN90oCy1CEpWTm9Qw3lYWtWZr6Mw/s960/X3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPhXQPS3B7jKKn3sjnDnYsxUGddZxHJSiCk1zxytyZMF9lSKn0JnM4j1C9xDDxOy33pkQXBrzKNyaJu9fU0ElPHy489nIwr4xJj3nLdAJcXNieHjKszdhf6seNRxk3yZ6gRdSx5aTFGqyde-Fd3-7vXq6Ji9lRIGIXN90oCy1CEpWTm9Qw3lYWtWZr6Mw/w300-h400/X3.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p>After visiting Wallace Creek, we stopped at the Parkfield-Coalinga Bridge across Little Cholame Creek for a photo op. The bridge literally crosses the San Andreas Fault.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEils739zEf3alb_XLyovzdL-4p856Gok1eZdFkP0OdTnCAn1W_Ye3hLJyWqcsFog1goow9yoNCj5nP8w_EIgJc_X3WegGIsmPnaU-kQ8IAZN_IXAxQNNI4xe4zFFDsNf89rkfJWDeRnDC-1lE0_CK4oVwLCgNFFQxCbjLM2YNY3WNj0oeRjXzHymm97VH0/s2048/X5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEils739zEf3alb_XLyovzdL-4p856Gok1eZdFkP0OdTnCAn1W_Ye3hLJyWqcsFog1goow9yoNCj5nP8w_EIgJc_X3WegGIsmPnaU-kQ8IAZN_IXAxQNNI4xe4zFFDsNf89rkfJWDeRnDC-1lE0_CK4oVwLCgNFFQxCbjLM2YNY3WNj0oeRjXzHymm97VH0/s320/X5.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8p-uI5Mzhfz7kxDmW-Cpob8onVAsxr4cjWDkN9R-X80qk1tHFyXVIz8tA4rDYup-aNy2-hux0bFBZt24drtmRtTUfrJNfMcy2b9n2M7Xryj3oFTrG2ZZIpYMK8SH2Ke1_Rhm30_jcPoOofPZ6V2tSX1CZ347sjxbby2afM7ef1oZxtPjE_8hg_LJPQXc/s2048/X4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8p-uI5Mzhfz7kxDmW-Cpob8onVAsxr4cjWDkN9R-X80qk1tHFyXVIz8tA4rDYup-aNy2-hux0bFBZt24drtmRtTUfrJNfMcy2b9n2M7Xryj3oFTrG2ZZIpYMK8SH2Ke1_Rhm30_jcPoOofPZ6V2tSX1CZ347sjxbby2afM7ef1oZxtPjE_8hg_LJPQXc/s320/X4.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></div><p> I was so excited I couldn't resist a little pole dancing here (I'll keep by day job).</p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-4177562629349058692024-01-28T00:00:00.006-05:002024-01-28T00:00:00.131-05:00Cohoes Mastodon<p> If you visit the New York State Museum in Albany, you will see the Cohoes Mastodon.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadjJPDTjko0Ai2dP1DKtgNQ6OSTWtgPH1wfr1_T2lArlRLrrsBNj41k6fSpOmX0wcJrNHRH5Jw2CDJpU_NgvmOTd8Jj93s50dvOhke0HqypgsgxZIeZ9iRqxu2cYTDSYf2WEAyrthMlSwiZ3IDqqcoIvPB2lMGGgV-8NpFwkQn_orWph3n_r_FtTNuZM/s1200/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadjJPDTjko0Ai2dP1DKtgNQ6OSTWtgPH1wfr1_T2lArlRLrrsBNj41k6fSpOmX0wcJrNHRH5Jw2CDJpU_NgvmOTd8Jj93s50dvOhke0HqypgsgxZIeZ9iRqxu2cYTDSYf2WEAyrthMlSwiZ3IDqqcoIvPB2lMGGgV-8NpFwkQn_orWph3n_r_FtTNuZM/w400-h266/A1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>The mastodon was discovered in September, 1866 during the construction of Harmony Mill #3 (one of the largest cotton mills in the world) near Cohoes Falls on the Mohawk River. Here's the sign on North Mohawk Street, at the northwest end of the massive Harmony Mill building (now apartments).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdomhQ1Q3f4S49m_SHT5qBneBi9EnXcvt2MRsbh6mSAkj2cqKLBQPNumNUHNZaREyTia5B2HU-w4lboUOhyphenhyphen6Pjcej8paLx5x1OkJcekvcKX50Q6flwYjdR-BFEHjtxVc525_n8y0Byp1aKsIOyiIEgmkde93Kj2kTGuhf_80eJu5haKLzA953KQ8_tWnI/s998/A5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="998" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdomhQ1Q3f4S49m_SHT5qBneBi9EnXcvt2MRsbh6mSAkj2cqKLBQPNumNUHNZaREyTia5B2HU-w4lboUOhyphenhyphen6Pjcej8paLx5x1OkJcekvcKX50Q6flwYjdR-BFEHjtxVc525_n8y0Byp1aKsIOyiIEgmkde93Kj2kTGuhf_80eJu5haKLzA953KQ8_tWnI/s320/A5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>The bones were found buried in a deep pothole at the base of the falls. The falls themselves can be viewed from the appropriately named Falls View Park in Cohoes.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBlylh_xSGYGmQ8e2XHidBYh1fokrlAjQUR12OraGasi7SM3eoIORboOo-7Tgd1PX100Z1dqDoGdW62w1SX_hC5EJfMs3BPGW_fLmE45Zy5qEmlltkQr84uaOvuL05hKXRlB8h0Z2PEYBqcx4GJbX-8CVF70bqlWyCPSucsq_zrE5r5NPh4p24mcHQGI/s2048/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBlylh_xSGYGmQ8e2XHidBYh1fokrlAjQUR12OraGasi7SM3eoIORboOo-7Tgd1PX100Z1dqDoGdW62w1SX_hC5EJfMs3BPGW_fLmE45Zy5qEmlltkQr84uaOvuL05hKXRlB8h0Z2PEYBqcx4GJbX-8CVF70bqlWyCPSucsq_zrE5r5NPh4p24mcHQGI/w400-h300/A3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>The potholes formed during higher water flow just after the last ice age. As the glaciers still sat up in Canada, the massive volumes of fresh meltwater created Glacial Lake Iroquois where the smaller Lake Ontario sits today. This water ripped through the Mohawk Valley into the Hudson Valley with 100 times the water flow of today's river.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHiNIW2T97k0c9ZHhyphenhyphenB-JqxhTP4OWiLWO7RAk195ZPtDdgbGM_gxIGLe7xZ9eMlDE__q1m75ym6RwuZdWT73vMi92F28i9rCU_bjauJ-Tsxudcd_afDB8ir1SgT_mnoV88K8C6nOb2N1fv2fuLH-c-rGeMI4iJvifg8Tbb9ecFADuuFo3hOQgdtWuZbsM/s1532/A4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1532" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHiNIW2T97k0c9ZHhyphenhyphenB-JqxhTP4OWiLWO7RAk195ZPtDdgbGM_gxIGLe7xZ9eMlDE__q1m75ym6RwuZdWT73vMi92F28i9rCU_bjauJ-Tsxudcd_afDB8ir1SgT_mnoV88K8C6nOb2N1fv2fuLH-c-rGeMI4iJvifg8Tbb9ecFADuuFo3hOQgdtWuZbsM/w400-h231/A4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Based on growth rings in the mastodon's tusk, we can determine he was around 32 years old when he died some 13,000 years ago. He led a hard life, almost starving to death at 11 from a wound to his lower jaw (probably from the tusk of another mastodon) and dying at 32 from another tusk wound to the temple. Here's a neat <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyjwz2UYWtU&t=557s" target="_blank">video </a>from Dr. Robert Feranec at the New York State Museum talking about the mastodon.</p><p>The Cohoes Mastodon display at the State Museum is well worth visiting with a lot of information presented about this mastodon and mastodons in general. Around the corner is also the famous mastodon diorama recreating a mother and baby mastodon in the mid-Hudson Valley with Storm King Mountain in the distance.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjDSlJqBYnIhBlDKGsKySnpnn9-qfUxvNuD9LozjTQRRkdourr1arAk79IR5VlVQ4Fqm_-XaYaFkjbs0xGiFNbCY-JrA0gHt2ZDnsdr2d9-1-2haO-RwGnErA4xsULzDnduA_pc2NHyCQ72n2gA07ujsADIGBBGnTwYfj3j_2LdZ_v0qulptwV_10YOLo/s500/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjDSlJqBYnIhBlDKGsKySnpnn9-qfUxvNuD9LozjTQRRkdourr1arAk79IR5VlVQ4Fqm_-XaYaFkjbs0xGiFNbCY-JrA0gHt2ZDnsdr2d9-1-2haO-RwGnErA4xsULzDnduA_pc2NHyCQ72n2gA07ujsADIGBBGnTwYfj3j_2LdZ_v0qulptwV_10YOLo/w400-h400/A6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>These were real animals literally walking around our backyards a few thousand years ago.</p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-87759017432324363482024-01-21T00:00:00.036-05:002024-01-21T00:00:00.126-05:00Out of Place Geodes?<p>When you're a geology professor, people often bring you things to identify. Usually, it's something easy to figure out (especially if it's local) and sometimes you have to disappoint them (supposed meteorites that turn out to be slag, for example). Occasionally, however, you get something truly odd.</p><p>A faculty colleague recently showed me some rocks that were dug up by her kid and friends at the base of a tree in a suburban area near Cantine Field in Saugerties, NY. A half-dozen or so spherical rocks several inches in diameter. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXleRiUXw7MLsDIT8o-VDhZZzJReIuzp8-F-_6fj_YneWaTMf8YYMStE1byAz5TmIXnThIHkzSIW5HxBoJ9SEdWbnYABGt-ndBRJQY8q2SAgxGZaePyyieFJpGw1iiX_mVObRX7mocSuD5GdsFJaKkd9ihuTj3-FG5UJHCv0ATIrjtTPCS0j6fmlGbPEE/s1842/X2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1704" data-original-width="1842" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXleRiUXw7MLsDIT8o-VDhZZzJReIuzp8-F-_6fj_YneWaTMf8YYMStE1byAz5TmIXnThIHkzSIW5HxBoJ9SEdWbnYABGt-ndBRJQY8q2SAgxGZaePyyieFJpGw1iiX_mVObRX7mocSuD5GdsFJaKkd9ihuTj3-FG5UJHCv0ATIrjtTPCS0j6fmlGbPEE/w400-h370/X2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>At first they almost looked like cement, rather than rock, but after cracking a few open, we were surprised to find they were geodes. Even more surprising, they were all slightly different.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvyCiKQtH6DOfLqJrUffv8ZC7SnoDkdhSnvxCeFe7t8GSY-2lUTEIKdPsMhGLHC4Bu7blGulJ5GmIjRVb7weT4c89frnA_1pl-LxxeK4xtRP2-rlmRAY0yDTfdE43KRKgefQrvNzbPk675VcxX25IhpHm9E1bcsaua_MjxZAx0d6xsthwqxzYluijDtwI/s2048/X1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvyCiKQtH6DOfLqJrUffv8ZC7SnoDkdhSnvxCeFe7t8GSY-2lUTEIKdPsMhGLHC4Bu7blGulJ5GmIjRVb7weT4c89frnA_1pl-LxxeK4xtRP2-rlmRAY0yDTfdE43KRKgefQrvNzbPk675VcxX25IhpHm9E1bcsaua_MjxZAx0d6xsthwqxzYluijDtwI/w400-h300/X1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>The one on the left took several swings of a heavy sledge to bust open and you can see there's a vein of chalcedony/chert running through the middle. The middle one had nice quartz crystals in the center, and the right one had well-formed calcite crystals!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG9zrR-6w4msgD5e4JXbUzC3CsdepXKWzOuqFojnfrD6e9VadmoXc5bhm9TdFUCrk6LCBN1iovBG_DLS1jCP0QyccKOkwojzFX1xelNAF_jJ-mgpvwYlT-wSsE47xonrKDP07M_X62BFc3tZ0Dq6ooG_fkMVARvIPCB2_YQ_2ieTLGb8OBpC7IEwwsFr0/s2048/X3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG9zrR-6w4msgD5e4JXbUzC3CsdepXKWzOuqFojnfrD6e9VadmoXc5bhm9TdFUCrk6LCBN1iovBG_DLS1jCP0QyccKOkwojzFX1xelNAF_jJ-mgpvwYlT-wSsE47xonrKDP07M_X62BFc3tZ0Dq6ooG_fkMVARvIPCB2_YQ_2ieTLGb8OBpC7IEwwsFr0/w400-h300/X3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>The one on the left was even more odd. It had some white crystals (shown) that fizzed with hydrochloric acid (which would normally indicate calcite) but then when I washed the rock, they started to get soft and dissolve (which calcite does not do). I'm not sure what they are.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, how did a pile of geodes end up in Saugerties? I have no idea. The bedrock in the nearby area is the Devonian Onondaga Limestone. I've never seen natural geodes in the area. My only guess is that they were once dumped there by someone. Where did the geodes originally come from? No idea. It's a mystery.</div><div><br /></div><div>Do any readers recognize where they might be originally from or how they might have gotten there? Let me know!</div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-57113998799614699442024-01-14T00:00:00.001-05:002024-01-14T00:00:00.135-05:00Cobalt Red<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I recently </span><span style="color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;">read an interesting book, <i><a href="https://amzn.to/3Rs6B5W" target="_blank">Cobalt Red</a></i>, about cobalt mining in the Congo (a country that has been cruelly exploited by the west for centuries). </span><span style="color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Katanga Region of the Congo in Africa holds more cobalt than the rest of the planet combined (as well as a host of other metallic ore minerals).</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimjPQ9R3EBGusGzvo_R3I693TbMdO0o3WsMqpQO-fU4G38Z-6SiwwacTEpYTz_yRE4vE9OD8cD6szRfKEamBxgmyTuG0wSMMoLFiEawkeZGFQYnZnVyJ2ASj7X0cwoMgi1OF-N5ixCB1Jd0lK2b_eBIIeurvYqyBemwHyzrWqCJC18Dvvkx8Z2AEnDsIs/s640/X5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="414" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimjPQ9R3EBGusGzvo_R3I693TbMdO0o3WsMqpQO-fU4G38Z-6SiwwacTEpYTz_yRE4vE9OD8cD6szRfKEamBxgmyTuG0wSMMoLFiEawkeZGFQYnZnVyJ2ASj7X0cwoMgi1OF-N5ixCB1Jd0lK2b_eBIIeurvYqyBemwHyzrWqCJC18Dvvkx8Z2AEnDsIs/w129-h200/X5.jpg" width="129" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX84b1hC62c6o6AgsYXeJFhhTqwI9NlrI8rGyUaVkTX7FOYl9lbRuBEO7jU807-_ucaUyv7huhE7PnptgX587MhAHIqbO5lgNbr_ZCb5eCrGwYLNEmuEYzxlnANUplKPavtuBhqSzQvElF3a9Fkp2icEb8CxohYM6TPjGyl6WDVjJMJG0QI4lvE_Id9u4/s784/X1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="784" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX84b1hC62c6o6AgsYXeJFhhTqwI9NlrI8rGyUaVkTX7FOYl9lbRuBEO7jU807-_ucaUyv7huhE7PnptgX587MhAHIqbO5lgNbr_ZCb5eCrGwYLNEmuEYzxlnANUplKPavtuBhqSzQvElF3a9Fkp2icEb8CxohYM6TPjGyl6WDVjJMJG0QI4lvE_Id9u4/w200-h186/X1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Why does the Congo hold so much cobalt? It's complicated. Here's a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0375674215300790?fbclid=IwAR06Yb5BdkCb1fnRL61u68gYKEpz5xOh0ODNsX2ktSXxCrOleVNa-zAnmpA" target="_blank">paper</a> with the details if you're up on your geochemistry. The bottom line is that around 4-5 million years ago (the Pliocene Epoch), near surface rocks were exposed to weathering under just the right pH conditions to form a mineral called heterogenite (CoOOH), an ore of cobalt. Being near the surface, in heavily weathered material, the mineral is relatively easy to mine by hand.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvpjCn9T28PEtmrIb2lv2JPzOrDsrY1_SXDQh_XbtASLRauxD0U_mlsxZj_ikVhXeLRdFyAn4Zrf_7Jyo3wRkrnL5xvrj1C7arYE1TE-64diqmg76Qc4WEp4hpuGvo69idd_Hzo5r-NwRIZmeKUp8RyjbcjBCeH0lRla4vHwxdi9LoM4f7dU5MS8y6EfI/s931/X2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="931" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvpjCn9T28PEtmrIb2lv2JPzOrDsrY1_SXDQh_XbtASLRauxD0U_mlsxZj_ikVhXeLRdFyAn4Zrf_7Jyo3wRkrnL5xvrj1C7arYE1TE-64diqmg76Qc4WEp4hpuGvo69idd_Hzo5r-NwRIZmeKUp8RyjbcjBCeH0lRla4vHwxdi9LoM4f7dU5MS8y6EfI/w400-h254/X2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why is cobalt important? It's critical for making the cathodes (positive terminals) of lithium-ion batteries (which are in everything from cell phones to Teslas). China, South Korea, and Japan </span><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">produce almost 90% of the world's lithium-ion batteries and they all get their cobalt from the Congo.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis7LrBG-x_yQFL-FDYDCwjvC-H_UA-7RIOyVT7_ZoWW8LbtWt-BopOd7bcAAWmXZJu1nL_PVvNozu8ale4Li_k-pZGLtUM9Lt2QPjJlc0jnrwpt-GZXA4PNWuAAXPWadTDRlj9Hkk3cQSe3Buk1O_9xMCfX_C6e9dq9JbIMMGtUJtmeNaNdcKaW0NHybw/s804/X3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="804" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis7LrBG-x_yQFL-FDYDCwjvC-H_UA-7RIOyVT7_ZoWW8LbtWt-BopOd7bcAAWmXZJu1nL_PVvNozu8ale4Li_k-pZGLtUM9Lt2QPjJlc0jnrwpt-GZXA4PNWuAAXPWadTDRlj9Hkk3cQSe3Buk1O_9xMCfX_C6e9dq9JbIMMGtUJtmeNaNdcKaW0NHybw/w400-h190/X3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">While companies that use lithium-ion batteries like Apple, Samsung, and Tesla tout how socially responsible they are on their websites, the reality of cobalt mining in the Congo is that it's done under slave-like conditions by "artisanal miners" as young as 12 who work under horrific conditions destroying their health and the landscape for a pittance while consumers in the U.S. feel virtuous for being "green" and multinational companies make billions.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHv-5YdnQy17RcXpm935uK7JXk4xV0OXB7K3C_vMnKPBaUDAAB4E8HvJHxup8dj-RQqYZEcV9f7-ofCWonKg7DgEtgGtHQQILrjcpbnILhmzh0ACn4_780feE6SM1ZLVbD_f_m2hh0m_ZYdmQBJ83wDVTyqMMPW13QQaFFuSEUXUIgLrVKvaYsFNKwuE/s1180/X6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="1180" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHv-5YdnQy17RcXpm935uK7JXk4xV0OXB7K3C_vMnKPBaUDAAB4E8HvJHxup8dj-RQqYZEcV9f7-ofCWonKg7DgEtgGtHQQILrjcpbnILhmzh0ACn4_780feE6SM1ZLVbD_f_m2hh0m_ZYdmQBJ83wDVTyqMMPW13QQaFFuSEUXUIgLrVKvaYsFNKwuE/w400-h266/X6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uNlxdtiU4qhKsOqlHQEqpNbsm-eTOJY8qf1lRC7IG5a8NGNY2DD0ux-KsIuwDDu3vdv8Hd27gRu7AOtkrLDgXy2Hgqh-a2CwW4uN37vTDwkCJYAG5G02xlYJ2_9-hSf2vUIxn9VS8XQyDJIyWnSUscQXgN12D8kHY_8czdOYHvICjW3en2NKBjjx_5w/s1368/X7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1026" data-original-width="1368" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3uNlxdtiU4qhKsOqlHQEqpNbsm-eTOJY8qf1lRC7IG5a8NGNY2DD0ux-KsIuwDDu3vdv8Hd27gRu7AOtkrLDgXy2Hgqh-a2CwW4uN37vTDwkCJYAG5G02xlYJ2_9-hSf2vUIxn9VS8XQyDJIyWnSUscQXgN12D8kHY_8czdOYHvICjW3en2NKBjjx_5w/w400-h300/X7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></span></span><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The author is a U.K. professor who's research specialty is modern slavery. He faced real dangers traveling through the Congo and visiting these mines since the government there and the primarily Chinese mine owners resort to violence and murder to keep the status quo. Reading the comments of the miners is heartbreaking - "Here it is better not to be born." It's a depressing but important read.</span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><p></p></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-58870545921100333962024-01-07T07:50:00.094-05:002024-01-07T07:50:00.136-05:00What on Earth is a Urolite?<p>Every heard of a urolite? Me neither. What about a coprolite? I suspect more people have probably heard of these.</p><p>Coprolites are fossilized feces or poop. There's nothing disgusting about them, the material has been completely mineralized and it's no worse than handling a rock (although when I pass one around the geology lab, some students are very reluctant to even touch it). Here are a couple of samples I have in my lab (I don't know what animal left these coprolites).</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhevr_DK2Bmp7ocB4kOU5ZiUwBDZFr5omuIpWOVv0nRWhJDy2Z6j-vSBIrxJF-BCYR1Jcn29RjX5WSUjSKOSXBuoN0q5J1OikcNeNElodHPkV50xOOPl_3oZkELWGxLNtO--HST4y35QDojRZ1yajtTeHxmtoqdMzCg4tNhaKA5n0L_Ao-JqbX1fjI-bSY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1442" data-original-width="1368" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhevr_DK2Bmp7ocB4kOU5ZiUwBDZFr5omuIpWOVv0nRWhJDy2Z6j-vSBIrxJF-BCYR1Jcn29RjX5WSUjSKOSXBuoN0q5J1OikcNeNElodHPkV50xOOPl_3oZkELWGxLNtO--HST4y35QDojRZ1yajtTeHxmtoqdMzCg4tNhaKA5n0L_Ao-JqbX1fjI-bSY=w380-h400" width="380" /></a></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Coprolites are ichnofossils or trace fossils in that they record a trace of an organism's activity (rather than a fossil of the organism itself). Paleontologists find coprolites useful since they can often provide information about the animal's digestive system and diet - below are microscopic views of coprolites from a </span><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Coprolite-contents-a-Photomicrograph-showing-thin-section-of-typical-coprolite-ground_fig2_319965190" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">scientific paper</a><span style="text-align: left;"> studying the diet of a group of herbivorous dinosaurs.</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqdTp_dgtpSyurKvYJ3ns8MlFLJKlvxCSrLvwNVkrMNPcpCFWTJtP7IJ3V8gxaa72fRvggWH-67zFaTMtTaeTDPqjPOZsj4txhxBy-6WUN3URZisv3p4f5lYrAIfY2dP5aKhTWRLrEWDb34tSMxORn1V00qxt6CYegNPxhw-bqlGN5V5MhptAxx-Nip24" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img alt="" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="850" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqdTp_dgtpSyurKvYJ3ns8MlFLJKlvxCSrLvwNVkrMNPcpCFWTJtP7IJ3V8gxaa72fRvggWH-67zFaTMtTaeTDPqjPOZsj4txhxBy-6WUN3URZisv3p4f5lYrAIfY2dP5aKhTWRLrEWDb34tSMxORn1V00qxt6CYegNPxhw-bqlGN5V5MhptAxx-Nip24=w375-h400" width="375" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p>I happened to stumble on a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260794382_Occurrence_of_urolites_related_to_dinosaurs_in_the_Lower_Cretaceous_of_the_Botucatu_Formation_Parana_Basin_Sao_Paulo_State_Brazil" target="_blank">paper</a> recently that introduced me to urolites. Urolites are another type of ichnofossil that are formed from sediments disturbed by the urine stream of an animal (hence the "uro" part of the name). In the case of the paper I read, urine streams from early Cretaceous Period dinosaurs in Brazil. Here's a picture from the paper of some urolite examples.</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2HKxePvC4xrI-Mseo0Mxp5TnkVRVATTPTSDv1zwsyhY0xQWG7bM679DoKCAL5r3EnH1kDBOWAdvgfCyqkyzulDNzqdU96ZSziCcwXWHbRa-nrBurjF5Zjt8Fc40TQykRA-eNsHSrnXOZvzbltlFiRYtVBvEzIUEIC48YOquJJP3F7JlzZq4eMDznAz1Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="850" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2HKxePvC4xrI-Mseo0Mxp5TnkVRVATTPTSDv1zwsyhY0xQWG7bM679DoKCAL5r3EnH1kDBOWAdvgfCyqkyzulDNzqdU96ZSziCcwXWHbRa-nrBurjF5Zjt8Fc40TQykRA-eNsHSrnXOZvzbltlFiRYtVBvEzIUEIC48YOquJJP3F7JlzZq4eMDznAz1Q=w477-h640" width="477" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">and a drawing illustrating the concept.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhu6N7jzfB41fq0yW8s7Bu8CEldbCiPD3OfOwUKIVRvfMBQ9S2Xe4xn78XEWqUKzcFhkWcCt6N2hA2PW3W1nQoqAYfUIPil1EmJiyKWQTbR_5sLSgfaMCywXHQdKFTSYNDvJKPpdMcLIArX0wNi13_VJChrvNGQicwwRMOIoTLPN-ssZP4XpM_U6Cf3EA4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="850" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhu6N7jzfB41fq0yW8s7Bu8CEldbCiPD3OfOwUKIVRvfMBQ9S2Xe4xn78XEWqUKzcFhkWcCt6N2hA2PW3W1nQoqAYfUIPil1EmJiyKWQTbR_5sLSgfaMCywXHQdKFTSYNDvJKPpdMcLIArX0wNi13_VJChrvNGQicwwRMOIoTLPN-ssZP4XpM_U6Cf3EA4=w400-h296" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">The authors said these fossils compared well to similar features formed by modern ostrich urinating in sand. They also claimed that this is the first direct evidence of liquid waste elimination by dinosaurs.</p><p style="text-align: left;">While not the sexiest of fossils, it's always neat to see what we can see and learn by careful observation of the world around us.</p><p></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-51330624202976608812023-12-31T11:16:00.098-05:002023-12-31T11:16:00.125-05:00Mudcracks & Ripple Marks<p style="text-align: left;">Back in 1788, Scottish polymath and geologist James Hutton, in his seminal work titled <i>Theory of the Earth</i>, came up with a concept in geology that came to be known as uniformitarianism.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiPnfWhSTGJib3s3ht_60ik46BSAFoyR6f-9C2wHMigU2i6CjzkAD54OYK6uAQrR6VqYYbd772pLJSYxY3K9IwSNBjkFKS-09DzjB-bq9opW1U7HzetGJD5gX6U18RHP-BShIyLZ54jHbueRo6ObXyVBDrt5EE4rsaGd2YLrFEU2wmKvRUNHCV4e6fsn4/s768/Hutton.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="768" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiPnfWhSTGJib3s3ht_60ik46BSAFoyR6f-9C2wHMigU2i6CjzkAD54OYK6uAQrR6VqYYbd772pLJSYxY3K9IwSNBjkFKS-09DzjB-bq9opW1U7HzetGJD5gX6U18RHP-BShIyLZ54jHbueRo6ObXyVBDrt5EE4rsaGd2YLrFEU2wmKvRUNHCV4e6fsn4/w400-h250/Hutton.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>The basic assumption in uniformitarianism is that we can interpret Earth's past history by assuming that the processes we see operating today were essentially the same processes operating in the Earth's past. This concept was later summarized by the memorable phrase "The present is the key to the past." While not always strictly true, in some ways the ancient Earth was different from the modern Earth, it is often a good guiding principle.</p><p>As an example, I took a picture in summer 2022 of a place called Duck Pond in the Mohonk Preserve on the Shawangunk Ridge near New Paltz. At the time, there was an issue with the dam impounding the pond and water levels were very low exposing the bed of the pond in places. The summer sun dessicated the mud forming mudcracks.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhamdbkzsxbockfiJBjTWnZgCdQg7ijQXYSeNoTJXgj32KYW01Z6QCBCetThi6p5MhH__GfVXQwrTJydnY-ba5MzVW8m7nQLtUpQbm-5eGX9kWYbV61ZFQYU3I3FbgOJd_OcjVXA4AgOyztgFDQWfrajOf3OFSys2L31N2jQO_RBAoyh5nunt-mGgsymqQ/s2048/IMG_3377.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhamdbkzsxbockfiJBjTWnZgCdQg7ijQXYSeNoTJXgj32KYW01Z6QCBCetThi6p5MhH__GfVXQwrTJydnY-ba5MzVW8m7nQLtUpQbm-5eGX9kWYbV61ZFQYU3I3FbgOJd_OcjVXA4AgOyztgFDQWfrajOf3OFSys2L31N2jQO_RBAoyh5nunt-mGgsymqQ/w300-h400/IMG_3377.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">Here's a picture from the same month and year as the previous shot but taken in Sojourner Truth State Park in Kingston. This is a slab of 420 million year old rock (Late Silurian Rondout Formation) showing what appear to be preserved mudcracks. The concept of uniformitarianism tells us that it's reasonable to assume that this structure in the rocks are, in fact, mudcracks and formed in a similar way to those we find in the modern world.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizD3scKO58B6Q_xQs9Uik1VsqUlal7qBOIDpjhUg3Kj7wq12qT86EFK03xYJvFzB7VaBt3OkKxYJeLctYMfLvG_rDrdJkeo6lu0TaCV7e1cieof-b6_oEI-MUXsRAA55rOGR9yzz9xafI0gfcRJkEC7xGf4UFA8GH3c9HF-yiz1KBu-FbQ0ez1qzKqJyo/s2048/IMG_3354.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizD3scKO58B6Q_xQs9Uik1VsqUlal7qBOIDpjhUg3Kj7wq12qT86EFK03xYJvFzB7VaBt3OkKxYJeLctYMfLvG_rDrdJkeo6lu0TaCV7e1cieof-b6_oEI-MUXsRAA55rOGR9yzz9xafI0gfcRJkEC7xGf4UFA8GH3c9HF-yiz1KBu-FbQ0ez1qzKqJyo/w300-h400/IMG_3354.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><p>And, importantly, these mudcracks tells us something about the paleoenvironment that existed here in Ulster County in the geologic past. It's not the whole picture, because mudcracks can form in different environments (a drying up lake bed as above or perhaps a muddy tidal flat on a shoreline) but other features in the rock, such as fossils, might help us figure that out.</p><p>Similarly, one can look at ripples in sand, like these in shallow ocean water I took at Ocracoke Island in North Carolina a few years ago.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNsNBrIENE-2ZmWXaEhP-P4DW7ovt1oN8mFpMNL1FcZ44PbJ6NJmf9USfuxtaOsfUvz99B8sNJ2Ud65TjXbUwrZ9v7cBWM00ewhMP1CJGpVKyoKgxnf3UZrBn8wAQAwiSH9j60K_2Ffifa3PAAozdzk0aan18QH7FWHrNuUZt_qIA4k_ScIj_OSwF7cZU/s800/968965_10151515154008884_1526105308_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNsNBrIENE-2ZmWXaEhP-P4DW7ovt1oN8mFpMNL1FcZ44PbJ6NJmf9USfuxtaOsfUvz99B8sNJ2Ud65TjXbUwrZ9v7cBWM00ewhMP1CJGpVKyoKgxnf3UZrBn8wAQAwiSH9j60K_2Ffifa3PAAozdzk0aan18QH7FWHrNuUZt_qIA4k_ScIj_OSwF7cZU/w400-h300/968965_10151515154008884_1526105308_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Then we can look at 420 million year old (also Late Silurian Rondout Formation but hear High Falls, NY) rock and find preserved ripple marks.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeOtthd02MHyY6H4Gyf6VroBZb4C4SVmKvWKQoEuQHgzUxFxp5n-a_bgMEE-F1ajMVkb6oOkSxAhJySLNZ2RMHt3ZajOHf1ixaNKRh-lWc5wawDF5ytnjSUhYUACMbCTj85Dk8aoIvFbRFEWSU0qRjA5h4JIF6GhWQ_I35CAX1rw7xuEnKmHvg_rU-uXc/s3648/Ripples%20in%20Rondout%20Fm.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2736" data-original-width="3648" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeOtthd02MHyY6H4Gyf6VroBZb4C4SVmKvWKQoEuQHgzUxFxp5n-a_bgMEE-F1ajMVkb6oOkSxAhJySLNZ2RMHt3ZajOHf1ixaNKRh-lWc5wawDF5ytnjSUhYUACMbCTj85Dk8aoIvFbRFEWSU0qRjA5h4JIF6GhWQ_I35CAX1rw7xuEnKmHvg_rU-uXc/w400-h300/Ripples%20in%20Rondout%20Fm.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>Here's another picture of ripple marks from the Mohonk Preserve in the Shawangunks in even older rock (Mid-Ordovician Martinsburg Formation). I didn't take this picture, it's from a 2009 <a href="https://ottohmuller.com/nysga2ge/Files/2009/NYSGA%202009%2012.%20The%20Shawangunk%20and%20Martinsburg%20Formations%20Revisited%20-%20Sedimentology,%20Stratigraphy,%20Mineralogy,%20Geochemistry,%20Structure%20and%20Paleontology.pdf" target="_blank">New York State Geological Association Field Guide</a> (although I was on this trip).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGyDMSWNNic1xusEhzYKKfvpX8HMGL43OeSTX1Mwo53fdbc2sXzNz2Lu7A-DSsKIr2tcwCQEtAN1qrTU-4o5vtj-j-8y_DDqWJg8TFabLNTXsDMdQ5F-v7nIYjtWZlXIJGl8PxMUmiykhTiINLM5jgg3s3GnEKPVVqxAz3IyjFANihFxnOoabj0Am5JQ8/s465/XX.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="465" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGyDMSWNNic1xusEhzYKKfvpX8HMGL43OeSTX1Mwo53fdbc2sXzNz2Lu7A-DSsKIr2tcwCQEtAN1qrTU-4o5vtj-j-8y_DDqWJg8TFabLNTXsDMdQ5F-v7nIYjtWZlXIJGl8PxMUmiykhTiINLM5jgg3s3GnEKPVVqxAz3IyjFANihFxnOoabj0Am5JQ8/w400-h294/XX.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Once again, the interpretation is that these ripple marks preserved from hundreds of millions of years ago in rocks formed by the same physical processes that form ripple marks in sand today - back and forth currents of water or wind.</p><p>These types of features are called sedimentary structures - essentially fossils of features formed in sediments and then preserved in rock as the sediments lithify. They are invaluable features for attempting to unravel the ancient geological history of an area like the Hudson Valley.</p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-47394208510020201022023-12-24T00:00:00.109-05:002023-12-24T00:00:00.143-05:00Yule<p style="text-align: left;">Merry Christmas for those who celebrate. While I grew up with Christmas, I don't find it particularly meaningful as an adult (although I still observe it for my wife and stepson). The winter solstice is, in many ways, a far more interesting seasonal event for me. Occurring last Thursday, December 21, at exactly 10:27 pm, it marks the point of maximum tilt of the Northern Hemisphere away from the Sun in our yearly orbit.</p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDuwAx2S8tduSaE9UcFvlbLBX6SEv-UOGtX1ltdqLfiltqVuT9N7WMyfSiqv-ARIRithg5Xqu7PYIdU6a2-sBOycyEUDQQU3Ct1AzJbSbH-9qOIduZFpIHSon1LV0v1FG5GHv0FJtFwpV0JBRXFvB-dfy5PRgEQMJcmzuDW2b51f2TvTVzSrkqVBdKXv0/s257/Axial.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="257" data-original-width="196" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDuwAx2S8tduSaE9UcFvlbLBX6SEv-UOGtX1ltdqLfiltqVuT9N7WMyfSiqv-ARIRithg5Xqu7PYIdU6a2-sBOycyEUDQQU3Ct1AzJbSbH-9qOIduZFpIHSon1LV0v1FG5GHv0FJtFwpV0JBRXFvB-dfy5PRgEQMJcmzuDW2b51f2TvTVzSrkqVBdKXv0/w153-h200/Axial.jpg" width="153" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">Many people, incorrectly, assume that the change in seasons has to do with our distance from the Sun. This is incorrect as the Earth is closest to the Sun (perihelion) on January 2, 2024 (aphelion, the furthest point, is six months later in early July). The seasons are due to the tilt of the Earth's axis as it orbits the Sun. When the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun, the sunlight at our mid-latitudes can't reach halfway around the Earth leading to a 9 hour day here in Ulster County, NY. In addition, the Sun is at a lower angle in the sky (about 25º altitude) meaning the incoming solar energy (insolation) is smeared out more than in the summer when the Sun is higher in the sky (around 70º of altitude with 15 hours of daylight in late June). It's the tilt, not the distance that causes the seasons.</p></div><p style="text-align: left;">There's a reason why almost all ancient cultures (at least in the mid-latitudes) observed the solstices - they are real events with a real impact on our lives. They especially impacted ancient people since solstices and equinoxes, along with the cycle of phases of the Moon, defined all early calendars (and even some religious calendars today).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnt4tID-2eBT6761eNcrlP6GToe86yW_GdyZdcwjzm8i6uop4ab44w0wtAOnCaV57N-x4zTGc3ECyPEAP_laIJWmf169P00J4304KdGPx2vtIDIVuzS6-MhyMCA6BatzVEelXksoTvg5vf6HhfdCnXWYsMRzXhJaAWi3UM3nHhtC3YiOF_nRo0hDjFHi0/s529/seasons.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="529" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnt4tID-2eBT6761eNcrlP6GToe86yW_GdyZdcwjzm8i6uop4ab44w0wtAOnCaV57N-x4zTGc3ECyPEAP_laIJWmf169P00J4304KdGPx2vtIDIVuzS6-MhyMCA6BatzVEelXksoTvg5vf6HhfdCnXWYsMRzXhJaAWi3UM3nHhtC3YiOF_nRo0hDjFHi0/w320-h198/seasons.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">I always try to mark the winter solstice with a fire in my backyard fire pit after the Sun goes down. Depending on the outside temperature, some friends or family may or may not join me. For me, like my northern European ancestors, the winter solstice is a time to celebrate as it marks the turning point where the days start to get fractionally longer again even though the worst parts of winter are yet to come. In ancient times, it used to be, and still should be in my opinion, the official New Year's Day. January 1 is an artificial construct due to political considerations in the Roman Empire.</p><p>The decreasing hours of daylight in the winter really gets to me. I have to always make an effort to get outside and get some sunlight during these shorter days - something difficult to do when I sometimes find myself inside working for most of those daylight hours and the persistently cloudy Hudson Valley winter days.</p><p>So, no geology in today's blog post (although talking about the seasons is basic Earth science) but some of my outdoor winter excursions may well be to geologic locales for future posts!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-28158500488274420722023-12-20T13:55:00.001-05:002023-12-20T13:59:05.571-05:00Minor Flooding in Ulster County<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">We got a little bit of rain a couple of days ago on Sunday
night into Monday, December 17-18 from a coastal storm. In my area, it seemed
to have dumped almost 4 inches of rain in less than 24 hours which led to some flooding
in the area.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Here are a couple of
graphs from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) stream gaging station on
the Rondout Creek at Rosendale near where I teach at SUNY Ulster. You can see
the pretty dramatic rise in of the stream from 10.25 feet at 8:00 pm Sunday to
19.5 feet at 3:30 pm Monday – 9.25 feet in 19.5 hours or almost half a foot per
hour. That’s why the National Weather Service issued flash flood alerts Sunday.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiltzO7c5b45O4Q8udgd3vsVdjyICu7vDIy-8SSwLXchw1gTf-LXEdMczvU3DYKn0bAWgPlep0Npayx6Bhidun_tLgKlYX5XKP6nJlpDqVxmP4HwOMmpPOZblV60Ee4Iuw4aRFlH-7u_htvKY3xZ4H1BzQP7nkgy7DklDhDKiXCrhUHpeXGFF6UQBxDbVk/s662/X1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="662" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiltzO7c5b45O4Q8udgd3vsVdjyICu7vDIy-8SSwLXchw1gTf-LXEdMczvU3DYKn0bAWgPlep0Npayx6Bhidun_tLgKlYX5XKP6nJlpDqVxmP4HwOMmpPOZblV60Ee4Iuw4aRFlH-7u_htvKY3xZ4H1BzQP7nkgy7DklDhDKiXCrhUHpeXGFF6UQBxDbVk/w400-h261/X1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The next graph shows the discharge of the Rondout in cubic
feet per second (ft<sup>3</sup>/s or cfs). This seemed to peak about a half
hour earlier than the height but again we see a fast increase from 700 cfs
around 8:00 pm to 15,800 cfs at 3:00 pm the next day. That’s an increase of
22.5 times the volume of water going past the gaging station each second in
less than a day.<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidAXCOPZDrhZoOMqjcCwoob5ByAA1xHAgWkFkNbYsWT6WMkryCXikON_Z840wtLIkFei3IWnUzRXUzbs7feiuBV3HL0S4BS_ezWKPzdRIZAVhme-iOI-7RFm3CZLsBaZRDkTbnqwgWDvdppTB0GXSwtVQFwYytxphmlj2GHNl4Xh0oJxZuRnYCYodPvXw/s662/X2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="662" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidAXCOPZDrhZoOMqjcCwoob5ByAA1xHAgWkFkNbYsWT6WMkryCXikON_Z840wtLIkFei3IWnUzRXUzbs7feiuBV3HL0S4BS_ezWKPzdRIZAVhme-iOI-7RFm3CZLsBaZRDkTbnqwgWDvdppTB0GXSwtVQFwYytxphmlj2GHNl4Xh0oJxZuRnYCYodPvXw/w400-h260/X2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">How does this compare to other flood events on the Rondout?
I actually have physical geology students at Ulster look at decades worth of data
from this local gaging station (available at <a href="https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/01367500">https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/01367500</a>)
to work out a recurrence interval vs. discharge graph as shown below.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0wZcwNHe70wsK5XKXzt26ZPT3FDkayDXMftaJFzUcvJuVPpbnvcoqSIbUs7YhdF23EBLtSAxcRxao45N0J83JNUr5PQB4RLO1_SCByDNcUMy604QAPnWfqLDiZu1WjlBUWTMbw3nRafmjhNSbqiJM46UYnxXCBvL3zSSPXlxNYa2crmZk3Wvwjk2EvXA/s1118/X4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="729" data-original-width="1118" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0wZcwNHe70wsK5XKXzt26ZPT3FDkayDXMftaJFzUcvJuVPpbnvcoqSIbUs7YhdF23EBLtSAxcRxao45N0J83JNUr5PQB4RLO1_SCByDNcUMy604QAPnWfqLDiZu1WjlBUWTMbw3nRafmjhNSbqiJM46UYnxXCBvL3zSSPXlxNYa2crmZk3Wvwjk2EvXA/w400-h261/X4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">From this graph (blue lines intersecting the red best-fit line to the data), we can tell that a discharge of 18,500 cfs
might occur, on average, every 6-7 years (the bottom scale may look odd because it's a semi-log graph). Not a major flooding event, but certainly
significant – especially for people who build their homes on river floodplains or
along normally-sleepy mountain streams which is common in our area.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">One place in Ulster County which always floods (almost yearly)
is Route 299 and Springtown Road just west of New Paltz on the other side of
the Wallkill River. As seen on Google Maps.<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_OCbL4w8LOMHk6q-OtVtma9yGhkGKn0pNHhszEgHMZKbP1ZAFowlV-xzMPBI1EY519NIWZ1m8O038ejNkp_nOtqPVKhYLA29jfZrM1PUJ4EZ-pyjc4hdKOY_OlZ5uiPWrQ35MS9wbjTJ5wRwBaZhvK9AZqjG-Ye0P7gJlxz_jBADTCOCYxC3h5hkNZVI/s497/X5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="497" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_OCbL4w8LOMHk6q-OtVtma9yGhkGKn0pNHhszEgHMZKbP1ZAFowlV-xzMPBI1EY519NIWZ1m8O038ejNkp_nOtqPVKhYLA29jfZrM1PUJ4EZ-pyjc4hdKOY_OlZ5uiPWrQ35MS9wbjTJ5wRwBaZhvK9AZqjG-Ye0P7gJlxz_jBADTCOCYxC3h5hkNZVI/w400-h250/X5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">The fields there are a natural floodplain of the Wallkill.
That’s a great place to grow corn and other crops but a lousy place to build.
The road was, as expected, flooded on Monday, December 18. Lots of pictures
shared on Facebook. Someone got a drone show showing minor coverage of Route
299 but Springtown Road completely underwater. By the way, obey the barriers
and don’t drive through stuff like this, a woman in Catskill lost her life by
driving into floodwaters Monday up there.<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOMNSu1WiRUH_ouKhNl2bZfB0jDav83gg2HnZOMEu_K5DyRHxBrWqASCUCNcPURxBUbgVLqZ3WvVwH96NOs-NlRNpZE245kqD7rlIwNqUB6WXPxX1fzf0KqVjEuBo-E4iVASz_cJVxou-WnmsndaX4mh-O8NDmHdqTFNMOBqX0A3r2WTnyAXi5uoSOjFo/s530/X6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="530" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOMNSu1WiRUH_ouKhNl2bZfB0jDav83gg2HnZOMEu_K5DyRHxBrWqASCUCNcPURxBUbgVLqZ3WvVwH96NOs-NlRNpZE245kqD7rlIwNqUB6WXPxX1fzf0KqVjEuBo-E4iVASz_cJVxou-WnmsndaX4mh-O8NDmHdqTFNMOBqX0A3r2WTnyAXi5uoSOjFo/w400-h300/X6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">What’s neat is that I also saw a picture on Facebook from
the Woodbury Historical Society from the 1920s showing the exact same place
flooded 100 years ago. That’s looking across the Wallkill from the New Paltz
side with the bridge to the left. Notice the faint Skytop Tower on the ridge.<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7-QR6d9amkPKT3ecQwMtm5JmvNxrtVdMX1vbvSFKkhFITO5XzHhpdbFOdDt6ZkB29uFGsSF6u0vY1q6fK8GKSIJKjcW4Txpqp3LplXTyCdm8H4sPQS6WsrqQ6aDJVIYm4jJ-lSDDX6Ms_rwPGH_chQmE2zZWsb6ch3P6zQurVRWqyDoI612fz7Hzlg5Q/s666/X7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="666" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7-QR6d9amkPKT3ecQwMtm5JmvNxrtVdMX1vbvSFKkhFITO5XzHhpdbFOdDt6ZkB29uFGsSF6u0vY1q6fK8GKSIJKjcW4Txpqp3LplXTyCdm8H4sPQS6WsrqQ6aDJVIYm4jJ-lSDDX6Ms_rwPGH_chQmE2zZWsb6ch3P6zQurVRWqyDoI612fz7Hzlg5Q/w400-h268/X7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">These fields have been flooding as long as there’s been a
Wallkill River here (it’s not called a floodplain for nothing!). Flooding is,
unfortunately for the people who have to deal with it, a natural part of a river’s
life.</p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-34281394531400739592023-12-17T00:00:00.425-05:002023-12-17T00:00:00.157-05:00Tail of the Cock Traced on a Rock<p>On the side of a busy highway near the Ulster County city of
Kingston is an series of outcrops quite well known to local geologists. They are along Route 199 just west of the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwAm5woMKE46gs9cWWvB8Mhqq7QsfG1fC6V8hObyFH7fVOnFEgSqtf4PrM2oPkQ3DWg9boWYe5cHCzgUHGneQp82ZoIMeRRDcHTo6_jBenDqpGwOb4nZ7_vVsChc4y0-Ys0ydMcDULl0_ibzGMaGPDzCN2kRNhuBoSwUsMGAqZA94MhlJxxTfuCUFWfwM/s2048/DSC01118.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwAm5woMKE46gs9cWWvB8Mhqq7QsfG1fC6V8hObyFH7fVOnFEgSqtf4PrM2oPkQ3DWg9boWYe5cHCzgUHGneQp82ZoIMeRRDcHTo6_jBenDqpGwOb4nZ7_vVsChc4y0-Ys0ydMcDULl0_ibzGMaGPDzCN2kRNhuBoSwUsMGAqZA94MhlJxxTfuCUFWfwM/w400-h300/DSC01118.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>One part of these outcrops is composed of the Esopus Shale Formation and, in this location, it's dipping steeply to the east with a nice glacially-polished surface making for treacherous climbing onto it (especially since you'd slide down into a massive thornbush if you lost your footing).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmAXvax8PG2Amiy15smyYAcm599ESI4f4DS24xkd9T9z2KOworCzuE_H0KlC5zCC4_GVGuOuejFyk6_BKF5nF1-ehi1FWqLXbdQ-Eye4vQzMlW0RCCdOyjOLgdNpiFlpUFsa4TbAu013mLMn55Mdpgwk-ny3Iv5GL9WZHAjhaMQ6xa6X4ebJvJMwCZMAQ/s1472/MVC-220F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="1472" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmAXvax8PG2Amiy15smyYAcm599ESI4f4DS24xkd9T9z2KOworCzuE_H0KlC5zCC4_GVGuOuejFyk6_BKF5nF1-ehi1FWqLXbdQ-Eye4vQzMlW0RCCdOyjOLgdNpiFlpUFsa4TbAu013mLMn55Mdpgwk-ny3Iv5GL9WZHAjhaMQ6xa6X4ebJvJMwCZMAQ/w400-h300/MVC-220F.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Looking at this nice polished surface, you'll see some swirling patterns etched into the rock (there's a little iron staining from what looks like the weathering of small inclusions of pyrite - FeS<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Z1_o1G5fX5HUGjU9XLOTVgvn2uXYfPMSyT20btqKqR6CfI0E9QQIB92U-itEA8zp1jbi5FfZNMtjD7NdF_dMvcjHmL5BDjba-86z_Ljxru2Xqf52BRxkw6kKbIMYKze1JpIYWaRzP4GG0OBc5u1APE82_giz7X0pRNYFwUrrRwcYgrcFWOw1Q8XxAgk/s1472/MVC-221F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="1472" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Z1_o1G5fX5HUGjU9XLOTVgvn2uXYfPMSyT20btqKqR6CfI0E9QQIB92U-itEA8zp1jbi5FfZNMtjD7NdF_dMvcjHmL5BDjba-86z_Ljxru2Xqf52BRxkw6kKbIMYKze1JpIYWaRzP4GG0OBc5u1APE82_giz7X0pRNYFwUrrRwcYgrcFWOw1Q8XxAgk/w400-h300/MVC-221F.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>They reminded some of "rooster tails" leading to their common name.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv7kekfQaFTUzKC457S6nXZCzderdbf8PT4cmqLEtOnCeGEhliqBsJwnh85jIZyH1J54utqkPwdh7gaCIvAgCdMGBrAfFzozmLO-ZGDCSs0GhtKPXLpXTneDLzd4JAii9JAaPe-PlD5mFGrCA1N3y1lrBjlYAAZJs6uMWhYs-VaPnyQ5jO5LyJ_X0pfaA/s757/XX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="670" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv7kekfQaFTUzKC457S6nXZCzderdbf8PT4cmqLEtOnCeGEhliqBsJwnh85jIZyH1J54utqkPwdh7gaCIvAgCdMGBrAfFzozmLO-ZGDCSs0GhtKPXLpXTneDLzd4JAii9JAaPe-PlD5mFGrCA1N3y1lrBjlYAAZJs6uMWhYs-VaPnyQ5jO5LyJ_X0pfaA/s320/XX.jpg" width="283" /></a></div><p>A close-up shows the pattern a little better.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOB_-_lV4hPGaVhjINVAUDKKiMjKjq8Zt1BAxu9Z48AP6SE8_-7BkDCMbBRtF_w_nqMpBwQFkwov8KHra0XsvJp10jQ_ymVxe_kFS2joj2rtX2qAKsgSTMEaYYKcWsoVokt-na1ukb_iU4sF3qq0uwrcVreGIa8CedDAtWVTJtux5zeV-sPK_cR4STTIs/s1472/MVC-222F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="1472" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOB_-_lV4hPGaVhjINVAUDKKiMjKjq8Zt1BAxu9Z48AP6SE8_-7BkDCMbBRtF_w_nqMpBwQFkwov8KHra0XsvJp10jQ_ymVxe_kFS2joj2rtX2qAKsgSTMEaYYKcWsoVokt-na1ukb_iU4sF3qq0uwrcVreGIa8CedDAtWVTJtux5zeV-sPK_cR4STTIs/w400-h300/MVC-222F.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>So what are these? Let's start with a little background first.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>While paleontology is the study of ancient life (as preserved in fossils), ichnology is a branch of paleontology concerned with trace fossils - fossils that represent some trace of the ancient organism's activity. An example might be a dinosaur trackway (or the eurypterid trackway I wrote about a couple of weeks ago).</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Sometimes all we have preserved from an organism is a trace fossil and we're not even sure exactly what species of animal made the trace. These trace fossils may be given taxonomic names and known as ichnospecies.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>This swirly fossil in the Esopus Shale (it's found in some other units as well) is such an ichnofossil and was was given the ichnospecies name <i>Zoophycos caudagalli </i>where <i>caudagalli</i> means “tail of the cock” or "rooster tail".</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The name <i>Zoophycos </i>was originally used to describe what was believed to be a new genus of algae (1855). It was later recognized that it wasn't algae at all but rather the trace of a marine worm - exactly what species of worm and exactly what this worm was doing is up for interpretation (although we can make some educated guesses).</p><p class="MsoNormal">Underlying the Esopus Shale, and just east of this particular outcrop on Route 199, are a series of limestone formations, chock full of marine invertebrate fossils, which formed in the early Devonian Period ( a hair over 400 million years ago). These limestones formed in the ancient Helderberg Sea - a shallow subtropical sea which once covered Ulster County (and beyond). Why subtropical? It's because this area was still in the Southern Hemisphere and closer to the equator than we are today.</p><p class="MsoNormal">This once clear sea began to get muddy, however, as mountain building started to occur to the east. This was the start of the formation of the Himalayan-scale Acadian Mountains. That's a story for a different day but suffice to say that the start of this mountain building brought a lot of sediments into the Helderberg Sea making it more muddy and leading to the deposition of the Esopus Shale. The previously-abundant marine invertebrates we see in the limestones disappeared as they were mostly filter feeders, straining organic material from the water, and those types of animals don't do well in muddy bottom waters.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Marine worms, however, do just fine in the bottom muds, as they churn through and extract organics from the sediments. While worms, and soft-squishy things in general, rarely preserve as fossils, they can leave traces of their activity. For <i>Zoophycos</i>, it's generally believed that the swirls were feeding traces of the worm (called spreiten) that lived in a vertical shaft, or burrow, beneath the traces.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz0Yi3PFHGZtP63K6athrtHclNhv5tC1mUEu6ug5stmBd8kHJ9feaE_y_HE-iYsFsMEGgbVypzvPcqPv0pn90Fu0RhM9RSXQIF4KFNRrTJ1LHeIpQScomkAtgnBDU7F1hJTS4lTgE4pEchJGmDK4wnQdP9yCjVUtfWmsIwcntAUjZb-fvXkuBjWg6hiog/s1393/zoophycos-2-side%20view%20with%20labels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="1393" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz0Yi3PFHGZtP63K6athrtHclNhv5tC1mUEu6ug5stmBd8kHJ9feaE_y_HE-iYsFsMEGgbVypzvPcqPv0pn90Fu0RhM9RSXQIF4KFNRrTJ1LHeIpQScomkAtgnBDU7F1hJTS4lTgE4pEchJGmDK4wnQdP9yCjVUtfWmsIwcntAUjZb-fvXkuBjWg6hiog/w400-h239/zoophycos-2-side%20view%20with%20labels.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Zoophycos fossil photo from the <a href="https://www.uky.edu/KGS/fossils/fossil-month-zoophycos.php" target="_blank">Kentucky Geological Survey</a></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Zoophycos fossils have been found throughout the geologic record from 541 million years ago to modern times and even recent studies (<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14954" target="_blank">Zhang, et al., 2015</a>) acknowledge that we're still not sure of the exact group of marine worm (sipunculida, echiurida, or polychaeta) that may have made these fossils. Whichever one it was, it certainly hit upon a very successful strategy for existing in the muddy seafloor sediments for hundreds of millions of years.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Maybe my students don't feel the same, but I am always humbled when standing on such outcrops, ignoring the modern traffic whizzing by, and looking at fossils like this while imagining the seafloor that once existed here deep in the mists of time.</p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-48860250649420757122023-12-10T00:00:00.195-05:002023-12-10T00:00:00.141-05:00Boulder Trains<p>Earth has experienced a number of ice ages throughout its history - times when continents, especially at high latitudes, were covered with massive ice sheets. The last major ice age peaked around 18,000 years ago when the Hudson Valley was covered with thousands of feet of ice.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p>As glaciers advance along the landscape, they pick up and entrain particles ranging in size from clay to large boulders and everything in between. As glaciers melt, these sediments are then deposited. This unsorted debris deposited by glaciers is generally called till but a number of different features can form from till by different glacial processes.</p><p>A boulder train is one type of glacial deposit. It's basically a linear or fan-shaped deposit of glacial boulders (called glacial erratics) aligned with the past direction of ice flow. One local boulder train (<a href="https://ottohmuller.com/nysga2ge/Files/1979/NYSGA%201979%20B13%20-%20Late%20Wisconsinan%20-%20Recent%20Geology%20of%20the%20Lower%20Rondout%20Valley,%20Ulster%20County,%20Southeastern%20New%20York.pdf" target="_blank">NYSGA 1979 Field Guide</a>) is just past where the Wallkill River flows into the the Rondout Creek between Rosendale and Kingston in Ulster County. In can be seen off Creek Locks Road about 2.7 miles from Rosendale (seen on Google Maps at <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/27Ar8FhYMLcrpNzUA" target="_blank">41° 51' 56" N, 074° 02' 32" W</a>).</p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1RH6QXWUjr61SrSOtVHOx8bHdVsfb8R2NiLWetrwhYIi15GgjFdUXPinz6IHSTPIe15kFKDMkYdkVdlthIQmrzbEuTRKFkZJaM0iw0iJe_5U_P0oJCRP0-ZKzbtMxEkaU7mxNmRHVW7xjDNbu9zwEB6H1QsbifBHXi99ff7BZHnSf6seChjgKSRmRH0/s454/X5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="454" data-original-width="392" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1RH6QXWUjr61SrSOtVHOx8bHdVsfb8R2NiLWetrwhYIi15GgjFdUXPinz6IHSTPIe15kFKDMkYdkVdlthIQmrzbEuTRKFkZJaM0iw0iJe_5U_P0oJCRP0-ZKzbtMxEkaU7mxNmRHVW7xjDNbu9zwEB6H1QsbifBHXi99ff7BZHnSf6seChjgKSRmRH0/w345-h400/X5.jpg" width="345" /></a></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Note the gray rocks scattered across the creek here</span></i></p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The river has carried away all of the smaller material here leaving the larger boulders behind.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg39JiietbVNvQJnoOqGXKRyAG7tXGqD6EePnf3Oxni9Zs4qJJfDsa3BXNTeOV4DVBdVGPaA2aKzITA81aOpoX0X1rbrPbrBxwh2h6G8rjypBlhcWqc04sDap5EMDcRHA1RrMlP1V61d5dOQsVCB9qhvWbPFrxar-eqPZHkOxyXTXP8rH7EGPAGG39_AUA/s1179/X6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1179" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg39JiietbVNvQJnoOqGXKRyAG7tXGqD6EePnf3Oxni9Zs4qJJfDsa3BXNTeOV4DVBdVGPaA2aKzITA81aOpoX0X1rbrPbrBxwh2h6G8rjypBlhcWqc04sDap5EMDcRHA1RrMlP1V61d5dOQsVCB9qhvWbPFrxar-eqPZHkOxyXTXP8rH7EGPAGG39_AUA/w400-h300/X6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Boulders in the Rondout Creek</span></i><br /></p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Not the best picture above, but there were no trespassing signs on the lawn area. One of these days I'll get a drone so I can get nice aerial shots of these types of features.</p><p>I think (but not positive) that another such boulder train is located in the middle of the Wallkill River half-way between the villages of New Paltz and Gardiner in Ulster County. It can be seen from Libertyville Road just south of the Ulster County Fairgrounds (or on Google Maps at <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/epHf7dcFhtfMp6Fv8" target="_blank">41° 43' 13" N, 074° 07' 52" W</a>).</p><p></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmySwnfid50gLCBZE9ys0Eoq5XZRUSpaWFHw2dFCLOAlIuskA98f-kvveKKdBrZSJBItvI6OOtQ6Hu3kMPT3N1LYKjY3VLl7BoKU2c2OM2rV-tXOPCaqGMrcM1Bto2MD8ZMuMGKBjTNyHt7fPWQihZM2B9X_T5xL67STYshvEXzyvOtaxvqAxC7SGlFjc/s740/X1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="740" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmySwnfid50gLCBZE9ys0Eoq5XZRUSpaWFHw2dFCLOAlIuskA98f-kvveKKdBrZSJBItvI6OOtQ6Hu3kMPT3N1LYKjY3VLl7BoKU2c2OM2rV-tXOPCaqGMrcM1Bto2MD8ZMuMGKBjTNyHt7fPWQihZM2B9X_T5xL67STYshvEXzyvOtaxvqAxC7SGlFjc/w400-h270/X1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Possible boulder train in the Wallkill River (note the streamlined island)</i></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAI2InoLkWnkeKQzXOV5JjWpn9oTKgUlA6mgUkwB5SAFq2_0EV2ezx83-nJbnXwrVvCTCYsc76gfHCelnQ1CFj2wZFwUMLotsZbkJjjVxFFBf9UERu1cchO6-_OAmKkX5a5b6vokaaZiDlo3ltrfPJAQ6_CqOF7EdauyFU6Wpu4joilXUBY_xFBCw5jes/s1179/X2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1179" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAI2InoLkWnkeKQzXOV5JjWpn9oTKgUlA6mgUkwB5SAFq2_0EV2ezx83-nJbnXwrVvCTCYsc76gfHCelnQ1CFj2wZFwUMLotsZbkJjjVxFFBf9UERu1cchO6-_OAmKkX5a5b6vokaaZiDlo3ltrfPJAQ6_CqOF7EdauyFU6Wpu4joilXUBY_xFBCw5jes/w400-h300/X2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6qLDQaYjbbNXbLnlJeqAChi9y88dJxoLM6fHVE6wVwIrpgc9X3dalTsUnaqC6K1jjEaSihG8rZitPDPzdSwKMVdSj9PrNFAbVglfDo09ype8fKhHtkFqFy834L1eXBuKMSNe16LyORoEdenos26QvCQZSt6xKe0Lz71_E3SgikdCguqPN4D6kFKezpVU/s1179/X3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1179" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6qLDQaYjbbNXbLnlJeqAChi9y88dJxoLM6fHVE6wVwIrpgc9X3dalTsUnaqC6K1jjEaSihG8rZitPDPzdSwKMVdSj9PrNFAbVglfDo09ype8fKhHtkFqFy834L1eXBuKMSNe16LyORoEdenos26QvCQZSt6xKe0Lz71_E3SgikdCguqPN4D6kFKezpVU/w400-h300/X3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pictures of boulders in the Wallkill River</span></i></p><p style="text-align: left;">Not the best pictures again, but it was too difficult to get down the riverbank at the time and the other side of the river was private property (again, a drone would have been nice).</p><p style="text-align: left;">The exact processes that lead to the deposition of boulder trains is still poorly understood. Some researchers have traced boulder trains to a nearby cliff and have hypothesized that thin glacial ice and the front edge of the glacier have plucked boulders from the cliff and smeared them out as a boulder train,</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZmoVsBaXvNwDx5kPDVVYYEV6NdXVR785xjbHhcOU3GbDhEgBQzZnCNzfYtUHNm5wrOi2p2Qq_AI-ojG0PDQwXeTFKyP8XWAnlmFzdy9dm9C3Oz4GwgZ1RUWEeN9rz3QqAAz8Q0ZkvCKhZ6zaomSRj5ZqsCMZOMt_3aylVnKjJqFqFmskubUr7MN6xwk/s447/X4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="252" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZmoVsBaXvNwDx5kPDVVYYEV6NdXVR785xjbHhcOU3GbDhEgBQzZnCNzfYtUHNm5wrOi2p2Qq_AI-ojG0PDQwXeTFKyP8XWAnlmFzdy9dm9C3Oz4GwgZ1RUWEeN9rz3QqAAz8Q0ZkvCKhZ6zaomSRj5ZqsCMZOMt_3aylVnKjJqFqFmskubUr7MN6xwk/w225-h400/X4.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">It turns out that looking at the topography just north of this boulder train does show a small stream valley and possible source area in the woods. I did not hike in to investigate - maybe sometime this winter if it's not posted.</span></p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The point of all this. Just that when geologists claim our area was once covered with glaciers, it's because the landscape all around us preserves evidence of that glaciation if you just know where and how to look for it.</p></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-24191739573235477182023-12-03T00:00:00.023-05:002023-12-03T10:28:17.831-05:00Kingston Eurypterids<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was recently surprised to read a paper about an interesting fossil found near SUNY Ulster, where I teach. It's a place in Kingston that I've been to before and where I've brought students. The fossil was actually discovered over 100 years ago in 1919 and first described in 1932. The slab containing the fossil was apparently collected at that time and now resides in the paleontology collection at Columbia University. The paper I read was a recent reexamination of the fossil (Braddy, S.J. & Gass, K.C. 2023. A eurypterid trackway from the Middle Ordovician of New York State. <i>Journal of Paleontology </i>97(1): 158-166).</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HRKqcQ-HJULJq3tR_b2SALALXFijcImBcFbZ_vNktoIp28tCaA7U9vpyt6T55UNTfHYK1iEt2DF5Tps-AtiPyIFmemktX7Ylk5HQ42CzYzXwRhMdDCi6uAi23n5GKri0XWxONNc6Nx6DM2bT3fFZHE290EY-sWvRX7ER19mhzbhDwH9Gkb3yrcP1ifw/s1600/ER.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HRKqcQ-HJULJq3tR_b2SALALXFijcImBcFbZ_vNktoIp28tCaA7U9vpyt6T55UNTfHYK1iEt2DF5Tps-AtiPyIFmemktX7Ylk5HQ42CzYzXwRhMdDCi6uAi23n5GKri0XWxONNc6Nx6DM2bT3fFZHE290EY-sWvRX7ER19mhzbhDwH9Gkb3yrcP1ifw/w240-h320/ER.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The fossil, as the paper title states, is a eurypterid trackway. Eurypterids are a type of marine arthropod, commonly called sea scorpions, related to modern horseshoe crabs. They existed from the Ordovician Period of geologic time (~465 million years ago) up until the end of the Permian Period (~250 million years ago). Some 250 species of eurypterids have been described ranging in size from 2 cm up to 2.5 m (over 8 feet!) in length. Eurypterids seem to have lived in areas of shallow brackish and/or fresh water.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1984, <i>Eurypterus remipes</i> (right) was named the official New York State fossil. There are a couple of important localities for eurypterid fossils in the State, called pools, one near Buffalo and one near Herkimer (Lang Quarry near Herkimer has produced some of the best eurypterid fossils in the world). These "pools" are interpreted to be tidal flat areas where bodies or molts (eurypterids molted like other arthropods) washed up and became buried and fossilized.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">One interesting thing about eurypterids is that there's fossil evidence that they could crawl out onto land like modern horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs famously do this in places like the Delaware estuary in late spring on nights of the full moon to spawn - I went to see them spawning on Slaughter Beach in Delaware in May, 2022 - an amazing sight (picture below).</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg78rl5nqQLy9ob4Ad2rrsbOdDlVnhqV3e-XjzHZZiaQkZ1TmwzZffKZoj9uQ_uCsh_Ywnv8ssoL3UVcdn2A8GNmh2fVQ8Als5in4VNLrc2UG__oJEzaEjN5pIzjnt3aMJyOmboIT6qfdosBq8WAn9bgLSvl-3LQFypfoa68CqC4iOWC7p8lIPKAPDivoM/s1179/HC.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1179" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg78rl5nqQLy9ob4Ad2rrsbOdDlVnhqV3e-XjzHZZiaQkZ1TmwzZffKZoj9uQ_uCsh_Ywnv8ssoL3UVcdn2A8GNmh2fVQ8Als5in4VNLrc2UG__oJEzaEjN5pIzjnt3aMJyOmboIT6qfdosBq8WAn9bgLSvl-3LQFypfoa68CqC4iOWC7p8lIPKAPDivoM/w400-h300/HC.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">As mentioned, this fossil is a trackway, not an actual fossil of a eurypterid. Paleontologists call these ichnofossils or trace fossils as they represent traces of the organism's activity (another example will be discussed in an upcoming post on <i>Zoophycos</i>).</p><p style="text-align: left;">Identifying what species of animal made a trackway may be difficult of even impossible so trackways are sometimes given their own species names (called ichnospecies). Back in 1932, this particular trackway was assigned the ichnospecies <i>Protichnites gallowayi </i>based on the appearance of the tracks (shown below). The tracks were on a slab of rock which also showed molds of mudcracks indicating the animal was walking across a muddy exposed tidal flat. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbU-npntnFGfKG4o5u_yFkShnitkQTtwEdjaBEu-kbRHTKJVT15DruEf60iw5wME5smwovGZTGRQr3iK3U8OUYiUvSn9ktYMZk16Yk01dpZig9Jx5m0DW1pOgMSaNLiUDh-049hnNAWk5vDJ0kQ2_mc1D9xlC4c5m4w7Nrxcn7QF_afKUSyE40ZGccfHI/s506/XX1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="337" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbU-npntnFGfKG4o5u_yFkShnitkQTtwEdjaBEu-kbRHTKJVT15DruEf60iw5wME5smwovGZTGRQr3iK3U8OUYiUvSn9ktYMZk16Yk01dpZig9Jx5m0DW1pOgMSaNLiUDh-049hnNAWk5vDJ0kQ2_mc1D9xlC4c5m4w7Nrxcn7QF_afKUSyE40ZGccfHI/w266-h400/XX1.jpg" width="266" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsIC0dOzcP7SVVNfXSFeKZNUCcy3X15ERhU1RHXAF0iKYbVGf1eFNzNV2unv17GLP2abYxT_2t7Lz77fy_YHR3XIXJu-AmhD21uLPHbrZABF8oy9pd5P04hwcyDK4THG7W2cXH-i9ODjaowrWvwdwfCu0YX_bLbXvo6H_HUloUoR5kc0skOfxYrmL3wow/s344/XX2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="344" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsIC0dOzcP7SVVNfXSFeKZNUCcy3X15ERhU1RHXAF0iKYbVGf1eFNzNV2unv17GLP2abYxT_2t7Lz77fy_YHR3XIXJu-AmhD21uLPHbrZABF8oy9pd5P04hwcyDK4THG7W2cXH-i9ODjaowrWvwdwfCu0YX_bLbXvo6H_HUloUoR5kc0skOfxYrmL3wow/s320/XX2.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Eurypterid trackway from Braddy & Gass (2023). Scale bare 5 cm on top, 1 cm on bottom</span></i></p><p style="text-align: left;">With the modern reexamination of this trackway, Braddy & Gass (2023) renamed the ichnospecies to <i>Palmichium gallowayi </i>and<i> </i>believe the tracks appear to have been made by a eurypterid, quite possibly <i>Brachyopterus stubblefieldi</i>, a small (8 cm) eurypterid from the Middle Ordovician Period and known from fossils in Wales (a bit closer to us during the Ordovician). This makes this trackway one of the oldest examples of a eurypterid trackway in the world. A drawing of this eurypterid is shown below.</p><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsXzwKyfIs_UI5FcrUOoUBxh3msz6KkQob0YrFV4Xt0bdEOP4KFHNb6gze_vm8dlFbEIOmE9VYspHlMWtvdzBoVr2zZS1Kp76R-5OBx_-zYIY7WyLyjQIpu8BY81dK_wFQGks-e7wh1LGSoftAbrJzligkCzutthyphenhyphenjaM99kZ6vK9fppF4Yn96XiJMMCQ/s547/Xx.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="525" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsXzwKyfIs_UI5FcrUOoUBxh3msz6KkQob0YrFV4Xt0bdEOP4KFHNb6gze_vm8dlFbEIOmE9VYspHlMWtvdzBoVr2zZS1Kp76R-5OBx_-zYIY7WyLyjQIpu8BY81dK_wFQGks-e7wh1LGSoftAbrJzligkCzutthyphenhyphenjaM99kZ6vK9fppF4Yn96XiJMMCQ/w307-h320/Xx.jpg" width="307" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brachyopterus.png">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brachyopterus.png</a></span></i></p></div><p>So, where was this trackway found? There's a park in Kingston called Hasbrouck Park. In older times, the hill, rising from the area along the Rondout Creek, was called the Vlightberg. Along the south side of this park are some steep cliffs which is where surface and underground cement mining was taking place over 100 years ago. It was Rosendale Natural Cement which I've written (and spoken) about numerous times. One small quarry area on the side of the cliffs was called Hill Quarry. The trackway was found on the south side of the entrance to the quarry in the Martinsburg Formation - a highly deformed shale and sandstone sequence from the Ordovician Period just below the famous Taconic unconformity with the overlying carbonate cement rocks.</p><p>Back in the Ordovician, a bit over 450 million years, ago, a eurypterid crawled up on a muddy tidal flat. What were they doing? Maybe molting. Maybe massing with other eurypterids to mate like the modern horseshoe crabs. Maybe just strolling in the moonlight - under a Moon that was closer to the Earth back then and forming more extensive tidal mud flats with more extreme tidal variations. The water lapping on the edge of the tidal flat would be warm - at the time we were in the Southern Hemisphere but much closer to the equator than we are today. After the eurypterid went about his business, the trackway baked in the sun the next day and the mud cracked. Then, in the next high tide, sand washed over the trackway and mudcracks and preserved them.</p><p>That sediment eventually became buried and lithified into sandstone. Then a mountain building event which formed the massive Taconic Mountains folded those sandstones deep underground. They eventually reached the surface again after tens of millions of years of erosion and were covered by a shallow sea which deposited a thick sequence of sediments (the cement rocks and overlying limestones).</p><p>We are very fortunate that humble little trackway made one evening hundreds of millions of years ago made it's way down to the present day for us to wonder about!</p></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-48368637019659359852023-11-26T00:00:00.007-05:002023-11-26T12:57:17.401-05:00Go and See<p class="MsoNormal">In the historical development of geology,
there were conflicting ideas about the formation of crystalline rocks (the
rocks we today refer to as igneous or metamorphic). In the late 1700s, an influential
German mineralogist named Abraham Gottlob Werner: (1749-1817) argued that crystalline
sediments chemically precipitated from an initial universal ocean early in
Earth’s history. While he published little, and frail health precluded traveling
beyond his local area, Werner was a very influential professor at the Freiberg
Mining Academy where he infected students with an almost disciple-like
fervor. This concept of rocks precipitating from ocean water became known as
Neptunism.</p><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another famous early geologist was James Hutton
(1726 –1797), a wealthy Scottish polymath who dabbled in medicine, chemical
manufacturing, agriculture, and geology. Often called the “Father of Modern
Geology”, he wrote <i>Theory of the Earth</i> in 1788 where he argued for the
principle of uniformitarianism – the idea that the same processes that operate
on Earth today were the same that have operated throughout Earth history. He
also advocated that crystalline rocks formed gradually over time from the
cooling and crystallization of molten rock or magma. This idea was in direct
opposition to Werner’s idea of Neptunism and came to be known as Plutonism
setting the stage for a vociferous debate between these two ideas in geology in the late 1700s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile,
in France, a geologist named Nicolas Desmarest (1725-1815) was studying and mapping
rocks in Auvergne, a mountainous area in central France. While his passion was
geology, Desmarest supported himself with a government job as Inspector General
and Director of Manufactures which enabled him to travel around the country,
often on foot so he could examine the local rocks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Auvergne, Desmarest found columnar basalt lava flows
which he was able to trace back to volcanic-like craters in the region. It was
clear that the basalt lava was erupted from these extinct craters. He presented
a geologic map of the area to the Paris Academy of Sciences which was later published
in 1777. His results clearly supported the ideas of Plutonism.<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAI3wLUVvM2JXjw5Ims32U7iyCOT7bRA8TS_-o4yCv3F-awoUgcuQmlmGe2JbNtIqpk4KbDzUNLRR9bUZHL6Zrgu30UD25821kt8tvwkAPYnDPJDCRHX0-oOTLCa9CSn3KRAncv2fFiS1P5SaiDjHsI5BhGOUFY8umdnZCgpl3iPzk95VLnS20n7Nw1pE/s705/XX.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="705" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAI3wLUVvM2JXjw5Ims32U7iyCOT7bRA8TS_-o4yCv3F-awoUgcuQmlmGe2JbNtIqpk4KbDzUNLRR9bUZHL6Zrgu30UD25821kt8tvwkAPYnDPJDCRHX0-oOTLCa9CSn3KRAncv2fFiS1P5SaiDjHsI5BhGOUFY8umdnZCgpl3iPzk95VLnS20n7Nw1pE/w400-h174/XX.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj78e8R6UL5UMu3RuboS2kn7Yaunww6L81exID9jT5lNViMHHGkB0Ex1rAu60KedR68S-0BG233EqzwGphSFDAnCNOIyRjRBB6casyRp_DHM5i77doHq1JzaGI2MlCD2CuxFjFqA8ehzb_cKZHEd23py-gQRTPf5oE0hSzwvlj8ticZZGkbxuovJQCB6Io/s617/X4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="617" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj78e8R6UL5UMu3RuboS2kn7Yaunww6L81exID9jT5lNViMHHGkB0Ex1rAu60KedR68S-0BG233EqzwGphSFDAnCNOIyRjRBB6casyRp_DHM5i77doHq1JzaGI2MlCD2CuxFjFqA8ehzb_cKZHEd23py-gQRTPf5oE0hSzwvlj8ticZZGkbxuovJQCB6Io/w400-h392/X4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Map of
the Auvergne lava flows by Desmarest</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLkMHiepUyJvnsqo4PMLLNVuKjg-35310-ETJHeYXhghjyAJfshFr56fOjB7_ZOdjI_DGukAmgt4p2jUR1c3xWuZxhU7gZQffr_9kYydhZ4WmemB0PIE24oBDXz7d1lG7waNjLTKscpRBm14ME7vJo4Ut65anpCJYdj4VW3FlHukjURT7vby9NPUC5Qvc/s700/Clipboard01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLkMHiepUyJvnsqo4PMLLNVuKjg-35310-ETJHeYXhghjyAJfshFr56fOjB7_ZOdjI_DGukAmgt4p2jUR1c3xWuZxhU7gZQffr_9kYydhZ4WmemB0PIE24oBDXz7d1lG7waNjLTKscpRBm14ME7vJo4Ut65anpCJYdj4VW3FlHukjURT7vby9NPUC5Qvc/w400-h266/Clipboard01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Columnar basalt lava flows in the the Auvergne region</i></div>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzXOFeibjpEFU9j_lVztk6m-Sv5UOvLP8cwePfEvunEV9wp3Omo633ARmTCQa3GC9n7fz8OAR21plX8-Z5lKwrFRSc-YEJcrs2PLa-FOBht4BdR2BOSB9p8Rj8HtK1zBfiGvWrYVjQWLO0XzvkKn4y4ihoYiIipOur5-WO5vSOzewCqgzHgBFuQWK1vbM/s800/Clipboard01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzXOFeibjpEFU9j_lVztk6m-Sv5UOvLP8cwePfEvunEV9wp3Omo633ARmTCQa3GC9n7fz8OAR21plX8-Z5lKwrFRSc-YEJcrs2PLa-FOBht4BdR2BOSB9p8Rj8HtK1zBfiGvWrYVjQWLO0XzvkKn4y4ihoYiIipOur5-WO5vSOzewCqgzHgBFuQWK1vbM/w400-h266/Clipboard01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Extinct volcanoes
in the Auvergne region</i></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When Desmarest was approached by those who wished to debate
Neptunism vs. Plutonism, he was reputed to have said “Go and see.” This quote,
which appears in most introductory textbooks in historical geology, strongly
resonates with modern geologists. Theorizing about the Earth is all well and
good, but if your ideas don’t stand up to field checking, there’s little point
debating it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That’s why we have field trips in geology. It’s one thing to
tell students that the Hudson Valley was once covered with a warm, shallow sea –
a fact that they’ll dutifully write in their notebooks without questioning. It’s another to take them
to a limestone rock outcrop on the side of a local highway and show them the
abundant marine invertebrate fossils in the rock. Want to learn about the
geology of the Hudson Valley? Go and see – look at the rocks and let them speak
to you.</p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-78922186077279780292022-03-22T09:33:00.004-04:002022-03-22T09:33:55.930-04:00Cranberry Lake Preserve<p> Went for a walk last week to the Cranberry Lake Preserve in Valhalla, Westchester County. It's a 190 acre biodiversity preserve with some hiking trails (a horribly-designed set of hiking trails, by the way, with the same color blaze used for completely different trails - without a map in hand you'd easily go astray). Of course Cranberry Lake Preserve surrounds, not surprisingly, the pretty Cranberry Lake.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMd8__FOiyOG40XcOkbijUURYL7-uQz13uPdwxqLqPhu40Gf_5GDnX-Umi_sfVsqJB5B3UoRbJxUvoC_zp2LwoQIMUdG4cHRWGA3boq1wN94H9DsmJV0QlG-mEtkmjRb2g5ATuxKCtMefoJI0bguKFjGSge3eyIULqLY-HzvAYqmkrDwbwS1IqvXnO" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="621" data-original-width="828" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMd8__FOiyOG40XcOkbijUURYL7-uQz13uPdwxqLqPhu40Gf_5GDnX-Umi_sfVsqJB5B3UoRbJxUvoC_zp2LwoQIMUdG4cHRWGA3boq1wN94H9DsmJV0QlG-mEtkmjRb2g5ATuxKCtMefoJI0bguKFjGSge3eyIULqLY-HzvAYqmkrDwbwS1IqvXnO=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br />Of interest to us, however, is an abandoned quarry built to supply stone for the nearby Kensico Dam - part of the New York City water supply system - which was completed in 1917.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3MweWNK1L5g-LMv_D8MbV_Q48wdAlePrAnUjiw9seQ8iJjwZSGYsk3Yu6139WS3eMc6HgY60nVQrlPCcLLHscPBwZ8pjfVjsZCobvL__6SjpKbcpmFLkyqFE3M30CmLpjlEoZ9QhoASkVGN2DvLXFgOuhruKfcQiP4rTvjN8TKlkJBmpcVlPi3FC1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="384" data-original-width="1005" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3MweWNK1L5g-LMv_D8MbV_Q48wdAlePrAnUjiw9seQ8iJjwZSGYsk3Yu6139WS3eMc6HgY60nVQrlPCcLLHscPBwZ8pjfVjsZCobvL__6SjpKbcpmFLkyqFE3M30CmLpjlEoZ9QhoASkVGN2DvLXFgOuhruKfcQiP4rTvjN8TKlkJBmpcVlPi3FC1=w640-h244" width="640" /></a></div><br />Walking the trails from the parking lot reveals what appears to be the Fordham Gneiss (the g is silent and gneiss is pronounced "nice"). Fordham Gneiss is a high-grade metamorphic rock formed during the Grenville orogeny (an orogeny is a mountain building event) a bit over a billion years ago. It was formed from high temperature and pressure alteration of sediments and volcanic material (probably associated with a volcanic island arc) caught up in a massive collision between proto-North American (called Laurentia) and, we think, a block of crust called Amazonia. This collision formed Himalayan-scale mountains right here on what was an ancient supercontinent called Rodinia (hundreds of millions of years prior to the later supercontinent of Pangaea).<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnIJIxwIyEJH-BDyGYeo-k8RvTR-FQEdJIPiKZyGv9v92eQew2ARyiiDpX7KVq3C72fMh6PSm67iv1cjlhC6YGGmy1RU1_qMEaivdUMRo9y6YNxffgAjrBqVMVeAl0iwE8KqNZuwZyLgysG6QZSrDig5ix_zue0EcsxjNidGEbWfJ0OQY5-cFcTTCK" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="828" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnIJIxwIyEJH-BDyGYeo-k8RvTR-FQEdJIPiKZyGv9v92eQew2ARyiiDpX7KVq3C72fMh6PSm67iv1cjlhC6YGGmy1RU1_qMEaivdUMRo9y6YNxffgAjrBqVMVeAl0iwE8KqNZuwZyLgysG6QZSrDig5ix_zue0EcsxjNidGEbWfJ0OQY5-cFcTTCK=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><br />This gneiss, that we walk on today, was once miles below the surface of those ancient Grenville Mountains only exposed today after a billion years of erosion!<p></p><p>The quarry that supplied rock for the Kensico Dam is on the other side of the lake from the parking area. A few of the pits were filled with water and supposedly once used as swimming holes by the locals.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgazVn58SWxYL8BZNcWgQav-ubLM4i4Bhkn2dhs-rD_vMXZbZZmmTu2E6OwL9teXaGfx9lpjLewARoWmog2xGIeVQbee_efZAZTw5oEJmuiR1TdUjDyaIYXeOrIj42bW9qthw_NQAde5Yw4vw3jCU47TpI9z8-zT6l_6_Fi-hI7H5TOTbcHz8m7hMHo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="621" data-original-width="828" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgazVn58SWxYL8BZNcWgQav-ubLM4i4Bhkn2dhs-rD_vMXZbZZmmTu2E6OwL9teXaGfx9lpjLewARoWmog2xGIeVQbee_efZAZTw5oEJmuiR1TdUjDyaIYXeOrIj42bW9qthw_NQAde5Yw4vw3jCU47TpI9z8-zT6l_6_Fi-hI7H5TOTbcHz8m7hMHo=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRuzHyi2aZFovrxrh3DbvFQG4ebT1k0gYkVKO0rShasFI4ACO8uvuS7flU23C3pU9txOCT_yJ-IXoIg4KhvbftVItoXA1YM-0ShnTgjmuF1C2v6neOoBpF8CFjqO8Ht66pVbnUSJlrj2Z7m05oQQNSQMigD-W4yqY_D9Updko5Vrfj74OaJMvApvyt" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="828" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRuzHyi2aZFovrxrh3DbvFQG4ebT1k0gYkVKO0rShasFI4ACO8uvuS7flU23C3pU9txOCT_yJ-IXoIg4KhvbftVItoXA1YM-0ShnTgjmuF1C2v6neOoBpF8CFjqO8Ht66pVbnUSJlrj2Z7m05oQQNSQMigD-W4yqY_D9Updko5Vrfj74OaJMvApvyt=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiVJxMHgq-1z2A5ytzwfRtGMUUMXWABe7uK_VZEGOauWr6mGULHvaB-Ec_eUrpWc8c-kjDwhVZHOQ-v0z5sfh20V3-LwXtkIIniV3TFAxsTRFmauz21D_0n-1i4e_KF3dRlbqTX-dmP5bhrKCYta9wJxOdIPYg2YFoLbQJtspEImkNWFkCtDifJWAUO" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="284" data-original-width="828" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiVJxMHgq-1z2A5ytzwfRtGMUUMXWABe7uK_VZEGOauWr6mGULHvaB-Ec_eUrpWc8c-kjDwhVZHOQ-v0z5sfh20V3-LwXtkIIniV3TFAxsTRFmauz21D_0n-1i4e_KF3dRlbqTX-dmP5bhrKCYta9wJxOdIPYg2YFoLbQJtspEImkNWFkCtDifJWAUO=w640-h220" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The rock they were quarrying here was not the Fordham Gneiss, however, it was the Yonkers Gneiss. You might think gneiss is gneiss, but that's not the case. The Yonkers Gneiss is what's called a granitic gneiss meaning it formed from the metamorphism of the igneous rock granite (as opposed to the Fordham Gneiss which formed from sediments and volcanic material). The Yonkers Gneiss is quite attractive (even more so when cut and polished) and was valued as a building stone (in the building trade, it's sometimes called the Yonkers granite but that's geologically incorrect).</div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiP-DTzvk58EElbeOVx37_Tiz8ShRL0wuqXzuWgVJFRvlJh7VQ_YzZS3kYzI7__5IRM6PkF6G-5xFYaVLZ5-FO5TBqZJ-phn0KTOWVrjzA_phgyD1W_OO4DZu-o2Za5Nc7siqiHMIZHn2hHg4qaxnRofCW_r9lsg-5iulT89K7B5u1W4VgjLftA7UQQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="828" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiP-DTzvk58EElbeOVx37_Tiz8ShRL0wuqXzuWgVJFRvlJh7VQ_YzZS3kYzI7__5IRM6PkF6G-5xFYaVLZ5-FO5TBqZJ-phn0KTOWVrjzA_phgyD1W_OO4DZu-o2Za5Nc7siqiHMIZHn2hHg4qaxnRofCW_r9lsg-5iulT89K7B5u1W4VgjLftA7UQQ=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><br /></div>While the Yonkers Gneiss has long been thought to be associated with the Fordham Gneiss, more recent data suggests that it's much younger. Instead of being slightly over a billion years old, it seems to be closer to 560 million years ago and associated with the rifting apart of the supercontinent of Rodinia (A-type granitoid associated with continental rifting for the geologically inclined).<p></p><div>Even if you don't care about the geological mysteries here, it is a nice hike. In mid-March it's easier to see the geology without all the green stuff, mosquitos were still absent, and we were serenaded by a chorus of wood frogs and spring peepers.</div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-11605033451328186662022-03-13T21:51:00.000-04:002022-03-13T21:51:00.673-04:00Geology is where you find it...<div><span style="font-family: times;">So I went to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan a few weeks ago to see their relatively new Hall of Gems and Minerals (highly recommended, by the way). No, I'm not going to post a picture of some magnificent mineral (of which there were many) but rather a picture of a piece of old artillery on display that caught my eye.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgt_IPUxEiFAV6Xu7KJhct_TkjC5f57nfe0KR6Vc5JhhwFuWQ7Cg8ItantQRPcY_zudn0IPBaKVE5ez9XRFzxDASwFrWm9In66tkbV-yLF1YFyDBZrvOC7nl--GATn5-ByK2lpxNUUuselMjPomL4QXwjy-0KZRdXzEC1MwoI5Piaey3rQKrRAEoIB6=s1000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="519" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgt_IPUxEiFAV6Xu7KJhct_TkjC5f57nfe0KR6Vc5JhhwFuWQ7Cg8ItantQRPcY_zudn0IPBaKVE5ez9XRFzxDASwFrWm9In66tkbV-yLF1YFyDBZrvOC7nl--GATn5-ByK2lpxNUUuselMjPomL4QXwjy-0KZRdXzEC1MwoI5Piaey3rQKrRAEoIB6=s320" width="166" /></span></a></div><div><p><span style="font-family: times;">This is a Parrott rifle shell. A Parrott rifle was what most of us would call a cannon (see below). They're named after Robert Parker Parrott, an ordnance officer in the U.S. Army who inspected canons manufactured at the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, New York. In 1836 he was hired by the foundry to solve a problem - how to make a cast iron rifled cannon barrel - one with spiraling grooves cut into the inside of the barrel to improve the performance of the canon. Previous attempts with cast iron had a disconcerting habit of blowing up when used. The result was the Parrott rifle where a band of wrought iron over the barrel (mostly) kept it from blowing apart during battle.. Parrott rifles were manufactured by the West Point Foundry between 1860 and 1889 and extensively used by the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHDkVZw5kpQ2cSKBgPbBpnRLnSB07R3lHpbuBtbXRGx77GBjmhFowsicPPk4AQ7hQFU0Mca6czQOuNHdeXAp1_mh_8EcUNrgQbzIVf5M7tfUA5AO5YsdRzns3vxzeEj_dc4n3qGSCB8JshNRi2Dkj63uhBh37DFmYucD88Ebu33hHm5MWfJ5iKNdbe=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHDkVZw5kpQ2cSKBgPbBpnRLnSB07R3lHpbuBtbXRGx77GBjmhFowsicPPk4AQ7hQFU0Mca6czQOuNHdeXAp1_mh_8EcUNrgQbzIVf5M7tfUA5AO5YsdRzns3vxzeEj_dc4n3qGSCB8JshNRi2Dkj63uhBh37DFmYucD88Ebu33hHm5MWfJ5iKNdbe=s320" width="320" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: times;">According to the display sign for the above Parrott shell on display in the Museum, it was found off the coast of Fort Hickory in North Carolina.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji6O9OTzWme1iUY9KuEhms1VR3rvgVvhR2Ml_GKEy3Xjq6Vg3H6vAVbtK5jIzgnmvCtj8C7ZWvpRMVdboi4xzMn26MOwpsaEHmQHC_pCNkKw7NLKmsZhIbiPcFOeVAKYVzycHwr9Y5CiJDW7aOdM-Q_kItLbtnTDXnpHVZK0Uaiy_fDGrVlvWUCJpK=s400" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img border="0" data-original-height="155" data-original-width="400" height="78" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji6O9OTzWme1iUY9KuEhms1VR3rvgVvhR2Ml_GKEy3Xjq6Vg3H6vAVbtK5jIzgnmvCtj8C7ZWvpRMVdboi4xzMn26MOwpsaEHmQHC_pCNkKw7NLKmsZhIbiPcFOeVAKYVzycHwr9Y5CiJDW7aOdM-Q_kItLbtnTDXnpHVZK0Uaiy_fDGrVlvWUCJpK=w200-h78" width="200" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: times;">Unfortunately, neither Google or Google Maps returns anything called "Fort Hickory" in North Carolina (or anywhere else on the eastern coastline). I have a picture of the label so I know I didn't misread it making it a complete mystery to me. If anyone knows where Fort Hickory is, let me know.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">
As a side note for trivia nerds, the West Point Foundry was where Jules Verne, in his 1867 novel <i>From the Earth to the Moon</i>, had the <i>Columbiad </i>manufactured - the cannon that launched his spacecraft to the Moon.</span></p><p>
<i><span style="font-family: times;">… the iron ore, molten in the great furnaces of Coldspring, and brought into contact with coal and silicium heated to a high temperature, was carburized and transformed into cast iron.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">
Anyway, so what's the geology connection? This shell, supposedly found off the Carolina coast, was forged from Hudson Highlands iron ore -specifically the mineral magnetite (Fe3O4). I don't know why, but I find this kind of stuff interesting.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">A mineral that formed a billion years ago in an ancient mountain range formed when continents collided into a supercontinent called Rodinia just happened to be in the proximity of a strategically important river to the early United States where it was exploited for making armaments in a famous foundry associated with the military academy at West Point (at a strategic location along the Hudson for the Revolutionary War). These cannons and shells were used in the Civil War and a chunk of this iron landed in the Atlantic Ocean off the southern coast where it was found and eventually brought back to its native New York for display.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-55678521677169784492022-03-06T12:00:00.004-05:002022-03-06T12:00:41.386-05:00Armored Mud Balls<p>This week's post takes us a little outside of the Hudson Valley and over to the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts. Specifically, to a town named Greenfield right on the Connecticut River and only about 12 miles or so south of the Vermont border. At Greenfield, the Connecticut River tumbled over Turner Falls where some neat rocks are exposed from the early Jurassic Period of geologic time.</p><p>Now we've all heard of the Jurassic because of the Jurassic Park movie franchise, but I wasn't visiting Greenfield to see dinosaur remains (although there are some trackways in the area) but rather to look at lowly mud balls. These aren't ordinary mud balls, however, but quite unique armored mud balls fossilized in those Jurassic-aged rocks.</p><p>During the Jurassic Period, the supercontinent of Pangaea was rifting apart. As Africa rifted away from North America to form the Atlantic Ocean, the crust stretched a bit further inland as well forming what are known as continental rifts (similar to the East African Rift today). The Connecticut Valley is one such continental rift from that period of time.</p><p>Below is a figure showing the geology of this area.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPmfoD5f6bfUbm7EWNgE5YsxUR_7E2MCbM6xbLaS7Roy4doGQc21J-d1rJQ2uOFS8Rebh9rELLGr9W4Y5B1HO4yDvVPjW0DW8zRE27VvhSVf6-ItvnXSvvfapzKfEwxQZhly_HeROrDC_zX16LNZuVlzCUIcumdl6nSJXMzatmZVHDfuXEmiyb18j9" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="" data-original-height="661" data-original-width="1195" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhPmfoD5f6bfUbm7EWNgE5YsxUR_7E2MCbM6xbLaS7Roy4doGQc21J-d1rJQ2uOFS8Rebh9rELLGr9W4Y5B1HO4yDvVPjW0DW8zRE27VvhSVf6-ItvnXSvvfapzKfEwxQZhly_HeROrDC_zX16LNZuVlzCUIcumdl6nSJXMzatmZVHDfuXEmiyb18j9=w456-h252" width="456" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.historic-deerfield.org/blog/2020/5/7/deerfield-river-valley-mysteries-how-the-glacier-age-and-other-geologic-events-shaped-historic-deerfield-and-surroundings-part-2">https://www.historic-deerfield.org/blog/2020/5/7/deerfield-river-valley-mysteries-how-the-glacier-age-and-other-geologic-events-shaped-historic-deerfield-and-surroundings-part-2</a></div><br />Now I could write a number of blog posts about the geology shown here, everything from basalt lavas pouring from deep faults to dinosaur trackway mysteries, to massive post-glacial lakes but today's topic are the mud balls.<p></p><p>Picture yourself standing in north-central Massachusetts some 200 million years ago. You're on the shore of a large shallow lake. It's a hot, arid climate and, off in the distance, you see some lavas flows erupting from a fissure at the base of some mountains. You're cautious, since two-legged therapod (meat-eating dinosaurs) are scouting around the area.</p><p>One afternoon, a distant thunderstorm drops some rain in the mountains. As water runs across the baked landscape, chunks of dried clay mud fall into the dry washes that are now filling with runoff from the rains and becoming streams. The streams flow down toward the lake, rounding off the chunks off mud as they tumble along. Becoming sticky, these mud balls pick up pebbles in the stream bed forming an armored coating around them. Finally, these armored mud balls come to rest in the sandy sediments of the lake bed (today known as the Turners Falls Sandstone).</p><p>A neat little story and not something that's normally preserved. Apparently, these types of mud balls are only known from about 10 places around the world. The best place to see them today is on the campus of Greenfield Community College which has a very neat <a href="https://www.gcc.mass.edu/oll/geology-path/" target="_blank">Geology Path</a> showing rocks of the area and some great examples of these mud balls.</p><p>Here are some pictures...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY6WJvTyUQ90ow8lgR4R3mYFqtEZppGtVrFoa--cMxdxKeR7bROAZUwYBGrfZcFqjRZRgrBV57sxTGOjz1JIVEwjuIYrfZU7-RVGkHMeJVOml17avdc36x_RL1YAaRKPBDnRGKAcPXk0xw2pufyxezNXxRsut3G6PIJp7Z7x9Jy2n5vYx8WjPa8YgZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY6WJvTyUQ90ow8lgR4R3mYFqtEZppGtVrFoa--cMxdxKeR7bROAZUwYBGrfZcFqjRZRgrBV57sxTGOjz1JIVEwjuIYrfZU7-RVGkHMeJVOml17avdc36x_RL1YAaRKPBDnRGKAcPXk0xw2pufyxezNXxRsut3G6PIJp7Z7x9Jy2n5vYx8WjPa8YgZ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY6WJvTyUQ90ow8lgR4R3mYFqtEZppGtVrFoa--cMxdxKeR7bROAZUwYBGrfZcFqjRZRgrBV57sxTGOjz1JIVEwjuIYrfZU7-RVGkHMeJVOml17avdc36x_RL1YAaRKPBDnRGKAcPXk0xw2pufyxezNXxRsut3G6PIJp7Z7x9Jy2n5vYx8WjPa8YgZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEht3Onc4hAyZjx4dgQjA7UDivYDL5kpuDWxTM5QjzmGfhjac1hRsYhnTvCvyz8ZXuP5Eq4B085bJiZcrh2Ih58tObZcGvM1ul54ytSgiE-xjVyC06FuFfPhFhB68Gx6lhuGqzcwMYQ_FYtyWjjJZ5IWmzzA7N8ZEdc9nyUlNpTmOIyeEzqfNY8K7sWJ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY6WJvTyUQ90ow8lgR4R3mYFqtEZppGtVrFoa--cMxdxKeR7bROAZUwYBGrfZcFqjRZRgrBV57sxTGOjz1JIVEwjuIYrfZU7-RVGkHMeJVOml17avdc36x_RL1YAaRKPBDnRGKAcPXk0xw2pufyxezNXxRsut3G6PIJp7Z7x9Jy2n5vYx8WjPa8YgZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY6WJvTyUQ90ow8lgR4R3mYFqtEZppGtVrFoa--cMxdxKeR7bROAZUwYBGrfZcFqjRZRgrBV57sxTGOjz1JIVEwjuIYrfZU7-RVGkHMeJVOml17avdc36x_RL1YAaRKPBDnRGKAcPXk0xw2pufyxezNXxRsut3G6PIJp7Z7x9Jy2n5vYx8WjPa8YgZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqwMYF0JoNn4UjQQNnyie69jHQIqoHUYAEepv669xH0BziCFqWR7HjITaUGWZZj39iHXXXr1DVQRz89JDnDZA1xjdsZjJLJjnb9_qP-W1ZLpPaymnKun4u1LMlxA_yfsQrvGnRMpT1tD_cgKrcHlyuUuky6yVb7hQXddltmgeEZNH01mFxbr4AhJqU=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY6WJvTyUQ90ow8lgR4R3mYFqtEZppGtVrFoa--cMxdxKeR7bROAZUwYBGrfZcFqjRZRgrBV57sxTGOjz1JIVEwjuIYrfZU7-RVGkHMeJVOml17avdc36x_RL1YAaRKPBDnRGKAcPXk0xw2pufyxezNXxRsut3G6PIJp7Z7x9Jy2n5vYx8WjPa8YgZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="933" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEio9iWr-f3jQilWbpOr-kluBm97HDYZg2X8ZwZyPgP0fDEftDpJ4UgXQZ1uVUZ7XnvX22m3GSs4ihCBxymFvk_0Ua4gb-meyBYXRIe2_qfTmeZVWKy-DGum8fUR24S-ovc7ubphe1WzH2Ssw7Jayt19X1pBdHrwb6qUIpTrztnXdZMc55ErbM5c2lay=w400-h352" width="400" /></a></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Worth a stop if you're ever in the area and have an interest in unusual geologic features!</div></div></div><p></p>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-6244832354709098582022-03-04T10:17:00.011-05:002022-03-04T10:20:37.178-05:00Let's try this again, shall we?When I first began this blog, over a decade ago now, I posted quite frequently.
After a few years, I got pretty busy - wrote a book on the geology of the Hudson
Valley (see sidebar), worked as STEM department chair for the largest department
on campus, went through a divorce and remarriage, and now work part-time as an
associate dean along with my full-time professor and department chair duties
(it's essentially three jobs).<div><br /></div><div>So, even though I'm way busy, I still miss
writing. I will try to post once a week (on weekends) to revive this blog a bit.
Let's see how it goes.</div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-29615926938562861932020-11-26T20:33:00.004-05:002020-11-26T20:34:04.231-05:00New Jersey Stromatolites<p>While driving through northeastern New Jersey recently, my wife and I made a detour to see a rock outcrop I had read about but never seen. It's located in the middle of a private housing development in Hamburg, a small town in northwestern New Jersey. It's a beautiful rock outcrop but also geologically significant.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI9s_ayHPHK5jGoJcBxY2F1mI2wVpuc5kP29BsaKz4dsFAb5RDBmYKLEmE6WuaP62Pu-3MfY9itBcn0YRWwg5vPgQf11ru-4GpOyk0HZLUsHLQgKaZ6h63Sy0M1URGHVTOG9XZw5UNCYo/s827/X1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="827" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI9s_ayHPHK5jGoJcBxY2F1mI2wVpuc5kP29BsaKz4dsFAb5RDBmYKLEmE6WuaP62Pu-3MfY9itBcn0YRWwg5vPgQf11ru-4GpOyk0HZLUsHLQgKaZ6h63Sy0M1URGHVTOG9XZw5UNCYo/w400-h300/X1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>So what is it? The rock type itself is unremarkable. It's called the Allentown Dolomite by geologists. Dolomite, or dolostone, is similar to limestone - a common rock made of the mineral calcite or CaCO<sub>3</sub>. Dolostone, on the other hand, is composed of dolomite which is basically calcite with a bit of magnesium replacing some of the calcium - CaMg(CO<sub>3</sub>)<sub>2</sub>.<div><br /></div><div>This particular dolostone was deposited between the Middle Cambrian to the start of the Ordovician Periods of geologic time - roughly 500 million years ago. At that time, North America was rotated 90° clockwise and what's now the east coast of the United States was the south coast and in subtropical southern latitudes. The area was under seawater and part of the continental shelf. You can see similar dolostones of the same age here in the Hudson Valley. They're called the Wappinger Group and are well exposed in eastern Dutchess County - here are some SUNY Ulster students examining the rock on Lime Kiln Road off I-84 near Fishkill.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmvZbQA1eO2IPJsOjFqm1_5twllT_9ERle0XOiWFNXpuPL1Ao6E-k8Ex2gp1KVCGMsTRmtyqc5PYCwWtgKed262UNiSxONHkOk_By5EbdCCVy70DHqACF4XnEREXlRuCmsF5lqJLAFjPg/s2048/P1030031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmvZbQA1eO2IPJsOjFqm1_5twllT_9ERle0XOiWFNXpuPL1Ao6E-k8Ex2gp1KVCGMsTRmtyqc5PYCwWtgKed262UNiSxONHkOk_By5EbdCCVy70DHqACF4XnEREXlRuCmsF5lqJLAFjPg/w400-h300/P1030031.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>When these rocks were being deposited as seafloor sediments, there was no life at all on land. The seas were teeming with marine invertebrates and even a few early chordates (eel-like animals) but no true vertebrates (fish) yet. But, for almost 3 billion years (yes, billion!), a very special group of organisms existed on the world's seafloors and without whom there would possibly be no animal life on Earth.</div><div><br /></div><div>The fossils in the Hamburg, NJ outcrop are called stromatolites. They actually formed from single-celled bacteria called cyanobacteria (cyan referring to a blue-green color). Cyanobacteria were among the first organisms on Earth to develop the process of photosynthesis - something today we associate with green plants. Photosynthesis basically takes water and carbon dioxide, with the energy of sunlight, and creates glucose (a simple sugar) and oxygen as a waste product.</div><div><br /></div><div>The early Earth's atmosphere had no oxygen. It did, however, have plenty of carbon dioxide. Mats of these cyanobacteria sat on the shallow seafloor and happily photosynthesized carbon dioxide into oxygen. For billions of years. Once oxygen levels built up enough, simple bacterial cells evolved (through a process called endosymbiosis) into more complex cells with a nucleus and organelles. This led, in short order (geologically-speaking) to multicellular life (metazoans) which used the oxygen now existing in the atmosphere.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even though the individual cyanobacteria cells were microscopic, together they formed sticky mats on the seafloor which trapped sediments over time. The bacterial cells grew up on top of the sediments and trapped some more. Over and over again eventually forming finely laminated mounds of sediment. While the cyanobacteria themselves were not preserved, the layered mounds were and are called stromatolites. Stromatolite fossils are found in other places - here in New York you can also view them (about the same age as those in New Jersey) just east of Saratoga Springs at a place called <a href="http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/research-collections/geology/resources/lester-park" target="_blank">Lester Park</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPSrdGM2jPdwmKamTZMTZhs-mOT7EaJgUMBhGHls0i-orM9-ScPWqIqtBTIPMYZpnEgcU1DU5UyekMrScGWnJGtIw-e-DFM6FDjhEyccDUrQYp3hRu6uhshonWjgqkBXP6tH6APrSy1nM/s640/Stromatolite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPSrdGM2jPdwmKamTZMTZhs-mOT7EaJgUMBhGHls0i-orM9-ScPWqIqtBTIPMYZpnEgcU1DU5UyekMrScGWnJGtIw-e-DFM6FDjhEyccDUrQYp3hRu6uhshonWjgqkBXP6tH6APrSy1nM/w400-h300/Stromatolite.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>Stromatolites still exist today, although they are quite rare and found only in a few environments (most notably, Shark Bay in Western Australia). Half a billion years ago, in shallow subtropical waters of a continental shelf in what's now New Jersey, these stromatolites lived their lives.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTLsZTIp7-d2jQRuIpQiSY_5vYeJvfqfhEXxY-Je8yt24VtRcAkvJHUZ4ovs40X0nXmJyxwPMAGR3BRYXYyCHS91_6dJq_vcWwiZunqOWDcekRuzXOuHXKpoJUJd1-H1sx6EMsbLyWTc/s828/Stromatolites2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="828" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTLsZTIp7-d2jQRuIpQiSY_5vYeJvfqfhEXxY-Je8yt24VtRcAkvJHUZ4ovs40X0nXmJyxwPMAGR3BRYXYyCHS91_6dJq_vcWwiZunqOWDcekRuzXOuHXKpoJUJd1-H1sx6EMsbLyWTc/w400-h334/Stromatolites2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Thank them - the oxygen they produced made it possible for our earliest ancestors to evolve.</span></div><div><br /></div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-52314955553741102572020-07-16T20:30:00.000-04:002020-07-16T20:30:04.323-04:00Geology of the Hudson Valley bookFinally!<br />
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Several years ago, I completed a manuscript for a book on the Geology of the Hudson Valley. I developed this while teaching a summer field course of the same name at SUNY Ulster County Community College. I talked to a publisher and they liked the manuscript but wanted some more stuff for it that would take additional work and I didn't have all the figures I wanted, etc.<br />
<br />
Then life intervened and the manuscript essentially got shelved. I used it for my classes but otherwise left it in manuscript form.<br />
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With COVID-19 putting everything on pause here in New York State back in March of 2020, I decided to get back to the manuscript, finish up all the illustrations, and publish with Amazon. Finished it up in June and it's now available to anyone interested.<br />
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It's written for the intelligent lay person who has an interest in the geologic history of the Hudson Valley. I promise that it is an interesting story.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhui_NDjYLqQ2EzcFA6_OdBJII0_HC-187eKnYXqEqr5LukEU483xjEyfVW2VVmMx4QVuVLJSA01tqGfSRnCPzk8M-9LQBchL9S81HXD6uevwhuJ0bxHy0T8oO0GyKrNbWZ2PIXgNmbRZk/s1600/BookCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="237" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhui_NDjYLqQ2EzcFA6_OdBJII0_HC-187eKnYXqEqr5LukEU483xjEyfVW2VVmMx4QVuVLJSA01tqGfSRnCPzk8M-9LQBchL9S81HXD6uevwhuJ0bxHy0T8oO0GyKrNbWZ2PIXgNmbRZk/s320/BookCover.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<b><a href="https://amzn.to/3jd8rpq" target="_blank">Geology of the Hudson Valley: A Billion Years of History</a></b></h3>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14397810357022541561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-15213586779249569202017-06-18T09:50:00.005-04:002017-06-18T20:26:37.018-04:00I'm on Pulse of the PlanetI obviously took a break from writing this blog. Eventful year, not in a good way, but that's life.<br />
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I did want to post a link to some podcasts that I participated in for <i>Pulse of the Planet</i>. The Executive Producer, Jim Metzner, lives close to where I teach. The podcasts are only two minutes long and on fossils.<br />
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According to their website: "Pulse of the Planet is broadcast over 252 public and commercial stations around the world and on the Armed Forces Radio Network, reaching over one million listeners weekly."<br />
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The different podcasts aired on four dates in May - 23, 24, 30, & 31. They can be found on the website here:<br />
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<a href="https://www.pulseplanet.com/dailyprogram/">https://www.pulseplanet.com/dailyprogram/</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-87935889888618770342016-05-03T11:28:00.000-04:002016-05-03T11:28:09.492-04:00Rosendale Cement geology walkFor those of you who are local to the Ulster County area...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinM0Gt9fUTbhwTI5u_1yMHSHgg8F0xoQ-tv3HGKAMiSEdUmox7fh_CkG9EmfJcmu1H5QunZsjihVGAFNrxlQEZva_MpIo_fLvjfoBYMSDSXlyhme04cayz6rSQ7KfzXiyaQ_ua_z6aaVE2/s1600/RC1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinM0Gt9fUTbhwTI5u_1yMHSHgg8F0xoQ-tv3HGKAMiSEdUmox7fh_CkG9EmfJcmu1H5QunZsjihVGAFNrxlQEZva_MpIo_fLvjfoBYMSDSXlyhme04cayz6rSQ7KfzXiyaQ_ua_z6aaVE2/s400/RC1.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
Have you ever wondered about those mines and kilns you see in the woods on the sides of the road between the towns of Rosendale and Kingston?<br />
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Want to learn more about their original purpose and history?<br />
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Are you familiar with the Delaware & Hudson (D & H) Canal? Did you know that it's intimately associated with the 19th century Rosendale Cement industry?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPNjclVPhsA_ziP1IuLrMU9yQYVnkeA6sIjrFkGi_kR1fIlRleRfPMyAu8F2Bw8o5lNnYsxJVmGvbh6Sxvbu58PBvFj2bmYBRfJgTmXttsQv3nOvE3pU-jx8wZSh5wBWpkpYz0CacfdUv/s1600/RC2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYPNjclVPhsA_ziP1IuLrMU9yQYVnkeA6sIjrFkGi_kR1fIlRleRfPMyAu8F2Bw8o5lNnYsxJVmGvbh6Sxvbu58PBvFj2bmYBRfJgTmXttsQv3nOvE3pU-jx8wZSh5wBWpkpYz0CacfdUv/s400/RC2.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
Would you like to enter a room and pillar cement mine with a geologist who will explain what you're looking at (in layman's terms)?<br />
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Are you interested in how those rocks formed some 420 million years ago and what makes them special?<br />
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Did you know there are fossil coral reefs throughout our local area?<br />
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Did you know Rosendale Cement was once nationally famous?<br />
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Join me on Sunday, May 8 at 1:00 pm for a family-friendly geology walk at the <a href="http://www.centuryhouse.org/" target="_blank">Century House Historical Society</a> in Rosendale, NY. We'll see some kilns, remnants of the D&H Canal, coral fossils in outcrop, and go inside of the Widow Jane Mine.<br />
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A suggested $5 donation supports the all-volunteer, tax-deductible work of the Society in preserving the mine and grounds of the A.J. Snyder Estate historical property.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1644183700798263875.post-50461016620858577732016-01-17T20:35:00.001-05:002016-01-17T20:41:25.153-05:00Tripod Rock<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVC-7hYrkoZHKTnqf40ONiKBtCVkkOQwu61IbRs-TVCl7cZnda87Kj5P0cSks9-U1Z7bgcL07oJI6r_B-4QmkwERLj-XFRptg_F4uJTTClxaHflKr53lZ7W60wv1A_La2i1ohoHGZbOXiB/s1600/TR5.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVC-7hYrkoZHKTnqf40ONiKBtCVkkOQwu61IbRs-TVCl7cZnda87Kj5P0cSks9-U1Z7bgcL07oJI6r_B-4QmkwERLj-XFRptg_F4uJTTClxaHflKr53lZ7W60wv1A_La2i1ohoHGZbOXiB/s320/TR5.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
I had to drive down I-287 in New Jersey in early January so I made a side trip to visit a place called <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/wk5pBxz3U1q" target="_blank">Pyramid Mountain National Historic Area </a>in Morris County. This park has a famous feature called Tripod Rock which I've wanted to see for a while.<br />
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Tripod Rock is similar to the <a href="http://hudsonvalleygeologist.blogspot.com/2013/07/north-salem-balanced-rock.html" target="_blank">North Salem Balanced Rock</a> in northern Westchester County which I've also posted about. In both cases, these are rocks that geologists refer to as glacial erratics but also have claims of being anthropogenic (man-made) structures.<br />
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The Visitor's Center was closed when we were there (a weekday in early January) but the bulletin board had a good supply of maps and other information). The hike from the Visitor's Center to Tripod Rock is about three miles round trip on well-marked and maintained trails with about three hundred feet of elevation change to get up to the ridge where the feature is located.<br />
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Geologically, Pyramid Mountain is Precambrian gneiss of the New Jersey Highlands (a continuation of our own Hudson Highlands here in the Hudson Valley) just west of the Ramapo Fault boundary with the Newark lowlands. It was easy to see numerous signs of glaciation in the area.<br />
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<i>One of many large glacial erratic boulders in the forest</i></div>
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<i>A smaller erratic of Devonian Schunnemunk Conglomerate</i></div>
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<i>Glacial striations in the Precambrian gneiss bedrock</i></div>
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Tripod rock is certainly an impressive feature at the top of a small rise. Approximately 2.5 x 2.5 x 5 meters in size (a very rough guess from my pictures), it would weigh around 100 U.S. tons. It's balanced on three other rocks about a half meter off the ground (hence the name, tripod rock).</div>
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<i>Someone placed a large log on the right side that I didn't feel like moving</i></div>
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The geologic story of Tripod Rock is simple enough. During the last advance (Wisconsin) of the most recent Pleistocene Epoch ice age, sheets of glacial ice moved down from the north plucking and carrying boulders which then become deposited as glacial erratics as the ice melted around 12,000 years ago. Tripod Rock, along with the New Salem Balanced Rock in northern Westchester, just happened to be deposited on other rocks leaving them nicely balanced for us to admire today.</div>
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That's not the whole story, however. Some have argued that Tripod Rock is a natural solstice marker. Others have gone even further and have called this a <a href="http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/dolmen.htm" target="_blank">dolmen</a>. Is there any chance that this interpretation is correct?</div>
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Well, to start, the glacial erratic interpretation is certainly the most plausible (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor" target="_blank">Occam's Razor</a> and all that). As mentioned above, the area was clearly glaciated and even the bedrock on which Tripod Rock rests shows glacial polishing, striations, and chatter marks (a row of crescent-shaped chips carved out by rocks carried along the bottom of a glacier).</div>
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Claims have been made for a summer solstice alignment at Tripod Rock (Scofield, B. 1983. A possible summer solstice marker in northern New Jersey. <i>NEARA Journal </i><b>18</b>:4-27). Here's a diagram of the alignment from Wikipedia.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYV4AjtsV8JN6v5pMLQ7tW60POJITA14eIY-5q1ddYLB4DGN5-gy-LATVA-YusQx6eSPA654hs7pDnxD3ALGC7C4RrAmVZgJm0i_eK8Tl9etJ7a3ZUq5qivBftoTdB00cqTohYKHVkFR4/s1600/TR7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYV4AjtsV8JN6v5pMLQ7tW60POJITA14eIY-5q1ddYLB4DGN5-gy-LATVA-YusQx6eSPA654hs7pDnxD3ALGC7C4RrAmVZgJm0i_eK8Tl9etJ7a3ZUq5qivBftoTdB00cqTohYKHVkFR4/s400/TR7.jpg" width="392" /></a></div>
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I'm a bit unconvinced. I could draw a lot of different lines on the above diagram and odds are that one or the other will align with something celestial.</div>
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<i>Get the idea?</i></div>
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<i>Boulders labeled G & H in the diagram. Also partly balanced.</i></div>
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Was this a dolmen? Did the Lenape Native Americans or some other people build this? While not impossible, it seems unlikely only because there's simply no evidence to suggest that they did other than "Wow, that's neat, it's unusual so someone must have created it." That doesn't mean it wasn't used as a solstice marker by Native Americans, just that until I see some sort of credible evidence, I remain skeptical.</div>
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<i>Snipped from a website. This is just crazy talk!</i></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1