A Columnar Basalt Staircase From Iceland (was Actually Not That Easy To Climb)

Joffre Lakes Provincial Park, Mount Currie, Canada // By Luc Tribolet

¡Corre a por ella!

The beautiful Cathedral Cliffs rise above the forest: Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming

© riverwindphotography, July, 2019

Snoqualmie Falls, Twin Peaks, Washington 2019.

Sauropod Ceiling

Imagine being on a caving trip, looking up at the ceiling, and seeing something fascinating on the roof of the cave you’re in. Apparently that happened to one of the geoscientists who authored a paper on this set of enormous dinosaur tracks found in a cave in southern France.

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Watling’s Blue Hole

This tiny lake is a feature on the Bahamanian island of San Salvador.

Watling’s blue hole is a karst feature, produced by the erosion of limestone. Limestone is made of calcium carbonate, a mineral that can dissolve in water, particularly in acidic water. Most rainwater is lightly acidic as it picks up CO2 from the atmospere to make carbonic acid; sulfur in the atmosphere can also create stronger acids and acid rain. When it rains on limestone, that little bit of acidity cause the limestone to dissolve, opening a hole or a gap or a low spot in the limestone where more water begins to pool and flow. As the water pools, it concentrates the acidity and dissolves the limestone more rapidly at that spot. The more water that flows into a spot, the more limestone it dissolves - opening up holes in the ground and widening cracks into caves.

Watling’s blue hole has an interesting water chemistry. On small islands, there is interplay between rainwater and seawater – fresh rainwater falls on islands and pushes the denser seawater out of the way, but also leaves mixed, brackish water in-between. Despite sitting on a rainy tropical island like that, Watling’s blue hole has no fresh water anywhere, not even a tiny lens on top, so this hole must link all the way to the ocean to let salt water flow in constantly to dominate the system.

This hole likely formed when sea levels were lower during the last ice age. It would have sat as an open cave at that time, with water draining into it and flowing out to the ocean. Rising sea levels then brought ocean water into that cave, flooding it and creating this blue hole. 

-JBB

Image credit: James St. John https://flic.kr/p/q9spdK

Read more: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/mendips/caveskarst/caveform.htm

Me writing: “She knew she had to go in this town called…”

My brain:

This world isn't ready for geocore. This world can't handle it. It's too powerful. Imagine turning every aspect of geology and geologists into a fun aesthetic... All the nerdy rock puns, sciencey bits, dirt digging, bone and stone hoarding glory of geology turned into a fun little collection of pics and beautiful writing to perfectly capture the feelings of geology.

We can make beautiful poetry about the gorgeous array of colors inside a single stone or silly little ones like "hot hot rock, rock so hot, bake on it potatoe tot". Y'all. Geocore would fucking slap as an aesthetic thing. It'd be like normal geology but with more.

Villanueva State Park, New Mexico

this video is like every facet of what it is to be a cat, all at once