Thrust reactivation

It will come as quite a surprise to most of you to hear that this is my last day in South Africa. A couple of months ago, I was offered a Marie Curie post-doc at the University of Edinburgh, and tonight I’m boarding a plane back to the UK – this time to stay. Well, for a couple of years at least.
To be honest, I don’t think it’s sunk in yet that I’m leaving. Once my head has got round it all, I’ll probably be in a mood more conducive to telling you about my new research, the wheres and whyfores of my move, and some reflections on what I have got, personally and professionally, from my two years in South Africa.

Categories: academic life, bloggery

Capetonian Geology: the Seapoint contact

In a previous installment, my intrepid wander along the Capetonian seafront ended at Seapoint, where slightly metamorphosed sediments of the Malmesbury group come into contact with the intrusive Cape Granite. In the photo I showed you then, the contact appeared to be fairly sharp.

SPcontact.JPG

However, if you look closely at the foreground of the photo above, you can see lenses of much darker material within the pale granite. These are actually bits of the Malmesbury Group sediments, completely surrounded, and incorporated within, the granite. The contact at Seapoint is actually anything but sharp; instead, over a hundred metres or so of the shoreline you can walk across a beautifully exposed example of a gradational contact. Starting on obvious outcrops of the Malmesbury group and heading east, first you see distinct veins of granite being intruded into the sediments:

Seapoint1.JPG

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Categories: fieldwork, geology, outcrops, photos, volcanoes

Geopuzzle #16

This weeks challenge comes via fellow Scibling Martin of Aardvarchaeology:

I’ve noticed something funny about the map of North America. The Great Lakes in the US form the end of a straight line of huge lakes extending north-west across Canada. Could you please tell me how that line of lakes formed?

It looks like he has a point:

canadasat.jpg

Now, this is one of those situations where I can make an educated guess about the answer, but I’m neither sure if it’s right or if I’m grasping the full story. If I’m even approaching a clue, this (right click to download) or this may prove helpful. Or not. Either way, get guessing.

Categories: geology, geopuzzling

The US election in just three words

Good call, America.

obama.jpg

Categories: bloggery

More Capetonian geology

Before continuing from yesterday the account of my journey along the Capetonian seaside, I should probably adhere to the principle that good field geology starts with knowing where you are, and where you’re going. So, here’s a Google Earth view showing my southward route along the Atlantic coast to the west of the city centre, between Three Anchor Bay and Seapoint.

ctsat.jpg

As I approached Seapoint, it was clear that I had also about to cross a contact between two rock units: looking ahead along the coast the clearly bedded and ridge-like outcrops of the Malmesbury Group were giving way to much more rounded outcrops of a massive looking, lighter coloured, lithology.

seapoint.JPG

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Categories: fieldwork, geology, outcrops, photos