Happy Equinox!

/in /by

It’s almost the equinox at least –in just two days it will be fall. And I’m so proud of myself that I’m actually writing something after only a month since my last post.

That’s because… I have NEWS! I just returned from a two week trip, during which I spent 6 days on the east coast, visiting and shooting some amazing geology. Too bad it rained most of my first three days, but I still managed to get some good photos anyway, including the Champlain Thrust fault in Burlington, Vermont and some gorgeous glaciofluvial potholes carved into Ordovician gneiss at Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.

Glaciofluvial pothole in Ordovician Collinsville Gneiss, Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts Berkshires (220906-15)

And on reaching Virginia, the weather cleared! I got to visit Natural Chimney’s park before driving into West Virginia –and then into Maryland –where I got to ogle the amazing syncline at Sideling Hill. From there I drove to Gettysburg, PA for a sobering few hours–and then onto Wilmington, Delaware. THERE ARE COOL ROCKS IN DELAWARE! I also saw an estuary in New Jersey and then drove to Washington, DC, where I visited Great Falls Park on the Potomac and spent the night in an airport hotel.

Mississippian clastic rocks of the Rockwell and overlying Purslane Formations, folded into a near-upright syncline at the Sideling Hill roadcut on I-68 in Maryland (220908-110)

Then on to Florida, where I visited my mother –and saw Lake Okeechobee on the way! I’d never before seen Lake Okeechobee except on a map –and suddenly, boom! There it was outside my window!

Aerial view of Lake Okeechobee, Florida (220910-8.9)

On the way home, I stopped in Fort Collins to visit my daughter –and took advantage of one morning where I bombed over to Scotts Bluff National Monument for a lovely hike among some even lovelier rocks, all of Oligocene to Miocene age.

Cliffs of flat-lying Oligocene White River Group and overlying Oligocene-Miocene Arikaree Group overlooking the Great Plains, Scotts Bluff National Monument, Nebraska (220916-37)

So here’s the best part –actually the worst, but it will make much better reading than the itinerary I just listed. I shot some 5 zillion photos of which I selected about 100 to add to my website. During much of the time in Florida and then Colorado, I processed and captions these images–which is a lot of work, actually, especially if you’re trying to be specific about a rock’s age and formation name and you need to look it up. Then on the plane ride home I transferred all my files from my laptop to my external drive and LOST ALL THE METADATA! So I spent much of yesterday recreating the captions and re-processing everything. But now, I’m happy to say that there are 101 new photos on the site.

Yay! phew!