“The animals of the Burgess Shale are holy objects...  We do not place them on pedestals and worship from afar.  We climb mountains and dynamite hillsides to find them.  We quarry them, split them, carve them, draw them,  and dissect them, struggling to wrest their secrets.  We vilify and curse them for their damnable intransigence.  They are grubby little creatures of a sea floor 530 million years old,  but we greet them with awe because they are the Old Ones, and they are trying to tell us something.“ From Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould, 1989 ..read more

"Because the world is round it turns me on. Because the wind is high it blows my mind. Because the sky is blue it makes me cry." Because by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1969 Intrepid explorer and self-taught geologist John Wesley Powell, during his historic expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers in 1869, astutely recognized the Great Unconformity but at the time was incapable of appreciating its enormous temporal magnitude and scientific significance. Located globally, it's a contact between a Precambrian basement of igneous and metamorphic rock and a cover of Phanerozoic se ..read more

"With looking comes understanding but not before total confusion!" Geologist, author, teacher, guide, good friend Wayne Ranney, 2020 Back in grade school in the '50s, well before the advent of plate tectonic theory, I distinctly recall my geography teacher commenting on the curious geometric fit of the continents that border the Atlantic Ocean. Was it possible they were once unified in a single globe-spanning landmass? At the time, it seemed so unlikely but so intriguing. The same could have been said for the slender Baja California Peninsula, whose contour mimics the west coa ..read more

‘What were the gods enraged by when the lava we are standing  on here and now was burning?’ From the Kristni saga The 10th Century Book of Iceland's Conversion to Christianity  by Icelandic monk Gunnlaugr Leifsson Halfway between Greenland and the British Isles in the Northeast Atlantic lies Iceland, the world's largest elevated basalt plateau. Following the break-up of supercontinent Pangaea, seafloor spreading at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and interaction with the Icelandic mantle plume - the commonly held view - gave rise to the volcanic island via effusive and voluminous ..read more

"The sun knew not where she had housing; The moon knew not what Might he had; The stars knew not where stood their places. Thus was it ere the earth was fashioned." Verse from Prose Edda written by Icelandic Law Speaker and poet Snorri Sturluson, c.1200 Located in the middle of the Northeast Atlantic between Greenland and the British Isles, Iceland is the largest volcanic island in the world with an above sea level area of 103,000 sq km. Seafloor spreading at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the mid-ocean boundary between the diverging North American and Eurasian plates, gave rise to the elevated bas ..read more

"Kemst þó hægt fari." "You will reach your destination even though you travel slowly." Old Icelandic Proverb Iceland is a volcanic island in the North Atlantic, the largest in the world, between Greenland of North America and the British Isles of Europe. Its formation was destined some 70 million years ago when the final phase of fragmentation of the late Paleozoic supercontinent of Pangaea initiated between its northern components of Laurentia and Eurasia. Emplacement of the North Atlantic Igneous Province - immense outpourings of lava that largely emplaced during the Paleocene - preceded ..read more

After visiting a number of museums in Italy during the summer, a curious coincidence occurred while hiking in Utah's Zion Canyon in the fall. But, it didn't stop there and continued the following week in Santa Fe and back home in Boston. The explanation requires a little geology, botany, neuroanatomy, lepidopterology, anthecology, phylogenetics, pharmacotoxicology, organic chemistry, ophthalmology and a basic knowledge of Italian Renaissance and American abstract art (though not in that order). Angels Landing of Zion National Park Constructed primarily of Navajo Sandstone ..read more

Cyclonically Frozen in New England; Glorious Spring Has Finally Sprung; Born of Necessity; Volcanic Plumbing in Iceland; Seafloor of a Konservat-Lagerstätten; New England's Most Enigmatic Exposure; "Squantum" Tombolo at Low Tide; Testimony to an Arid Interior; Volcanic Dams of the Inner Gorge. By the time the end of the year rolls around, there are always a number of posts that were never written. And so, with this final one of the year, in what has become a tradition on my blog for six years running, here’s my end-of-the-year post of those that "never made it" in 2018. Please visit the s ..read more

“The purity of the outlines, the softness of everything, saggy of colors, the harmonious unity of the sky with the sea and the sea with the land ... who saw them a only once, he owns them for life.” German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on Sicily in 1787 Dazzling white in the Sicilian sun against the crystal clear, azure Mediterranean, Scala dei Turchi begs to be explored. For tourists and beach-goers, the "Staircase of the Turks" is a popular attraction for its unique beauty, exploring its smooth sinuous steps and sunbathing on its bronze-color ..read more

"Fjarst í eilífðar útsæ vakir eylendan þín." "Far in the eternal yonder sea your island wakes." Icelandic poet and playwright Stefán Guðmundur Guðmundsson, 1853-1927. Continental rifting of the Late Paleozoic supercontinent of Pangaea, its progressive break-up and initial spreading of the Atlantic Ocean was preceded by the intraplate emplacement of large igneous basalt provinces in the Mesozoic-Paleogene. Fragmented by seafloor spreading, eroded remnants of the dissociated continental flood basalt events are distributed on formerly conjugate margins of rifted and drifted landmasses across ..read more