New Zealand turbidite field trip – day 1

Today we went to a nice outcrop along the west Taranaki coast to look at Miocene turbidites.  These deep-marine sandstones were deposited in a retro-arc setting during the mid to late Miocene - more on that in another post.  The Taranaki basin is also a very productive basin in terms of hydrocarbons, with more than …

Geology on the Wing Wednesdays #8 – Abandoned Sabine river delta near Cameron, Louisiana

The Sabine river has a very interesting coastal history, mostly documented by Rufus LeBlanc.  He shows a pattern of modern avulsions of the river updip from the coastline, leading to at least two deltas.  Due to low sediment supply and the position of the coastline with the dominant Gulf winds, the deltas are wave dominated. …

Conglomeratic submarine canyon fill, Point Lobos, California

Wow, this is one of the best normally graded turbidites I have ever seen!  I saw this at the Point Lobos State Natural Preserve near Monterey, CA on a recent field trip with SPODDS (my former research group) .  These rocks exposed along the Pacific coast have been uplifted by San Andreas transpression, and they are …

Geology on the Wing Wednesdays #5 – Newly created beach on Lake Houston

This week, guest blogger Dave Wolf (@davidewolf on twitter) is in the house, and has a sobering look at the drought crisis affecting Texas.  Dave took these photos from a MUCH larger plane than mine, as evidenced by the enormous wing flaps in the photo.  The Texas drought has been in the news a lot …

The flying geologist’s summer 2011 vacation

Well, this blog is supposed to be about turbidites, and I think it probably will be.  However, I have some photos I would like to share from a recent trip that was a trip of a lifetime. I am a pilot and have a Cessna 206, a (slow) single engine 4 place airplane.  I decided …