The fantasy world of Sintra
A short 40-minute train ride—going west from Lisbon—brings you to Sintra, a small town that feels a world away from the conjested streets of Lisbon. Like most scenically beautiful places, It all starts with the geology! In this case, a blob of granite (small pluton for you geologists) has created a high ridge that looms over the surrounding region, with...
Why are there earthquakes in Lisbon?
Lisbon is similar to San Francisco not only because of its position on the edge of an estuary and its Golden-Gate-like bridge. Another similarity is immediately obvious in the topography of the landscape—steep slopes and numerous hills separate distinctive neighborhoods and make the city feel larger than it is. Both cities have streetcars. Whereas San Francisco's streetcars stick to the...
Lisboa (Lisbon) by the sea
The landscape of Lisbon is largely defined by its seaside location. For centuries, even millennia, inhabitants have made their living on the sea—searching for their food and new lands to exploit. The city is situated next to the Rio Tejo (Tagus River), which is not a river at all, but an estuary where fresh water from the Tagus River interacts...
Join me for a trip to a place where cultures and tectonic plates have collided!
Welcome to the reawakening of this blog, which has been dormant for three years. I invite you to follow the blog and receive notifications of new posts via email during the next two months. The goal is to explore incredible landscapes and provide the reader with a taste of their beauty and geologic underpinnings. The Mediterranean Sea is the remnant...
Assembling Patagonia
Sometimes you just feel lucky! In preparation for writing about the geologic history of Patagonia I have been reading papers about the oldest rocks there—aimed at learning how Patagonia was "put together" with the rest of South America during the assembly of the Gondwana super-continent. I had decided to attend the Geological Society of America's March meeting of the Cordilleran...
The Patagonian saga continues
We're back in the USA! Thanks to everyone who followed my explorations of the geology and natural environment in this amazing part of the world—Patagonia. Also thanks for your comments along the way. I wanted to respond to many of them but was sufficiently challenged just getting the initial postings out there. During the upcoming months, I will be focused...
From the cordillera to the capital
Last night in the cordillera—where to stay? Not in Bariloche but west of it, where it's possible to be immersed in mountains, lakes, and sky, rather than atrocious architecture and consumer products. We splurged with a night in a 5-star hotel: the Charming Hotel—who came up that rather silly name? It is on a cliff overlooking Lago Nahuel Huapi with...
The prettiest town in Argentina
We have not visited all of the towns in Argentina, but San Martín de los Andes is the prettiest one we've visited so far. It is situated at the east end of Lago Lácar and at the edge of Parque Nacional Lanín. San Martín is a ski town in the winter; in the summer it's a tranquil base for kayaking,...
Volcanoes past and present
The lake district is in the northwestern part of Patagonia, where the landscape has changed somewhat. In Argentina, the lakes are still on the dry side of the Andes, but the country border here jogs a little westward to capture more of the cordillera with its mountains and green forests. The nothofagus is still here—southern beech tree that evolved when...
La Ruta 40—now and 9,000 years ago
You may be familiar with Highway 50 in Nevada—it is the slow road going east–west. A book about this road is titled "The Loneliest Road in America". It gives a mile by mile description of features along the way (ghost towns, sand dunes, gold mines, etc.). For La Ruta 40 in Argentina, this would be a boring book indeed! Travel...
Whispers of rock
If climbers are straining to conquer the scream of raw stone, geologists are straining to hear the whispers of rock that often yields its secrets reluctantly. Learning to "read the rocks"—to decipher Earth's history—is like reading a story where most of the pages are missing, and the pages that remain are shuffled into a random order. So learning to interpret...
Scream of stone
"Scream of Stone"—an aptly named, feature-length film by Werner Herzog documents the personalities, egos, and drama involved with a climbing expedition to Cerro Torre. It's shot on location and includes stunning footage of the mountains here. Although lower in elevation than Cerro FitzRoy (3100 meters compared to 3400 meters) Cerro Torre makes up for its diminutive stature with steeper slopes,...
About the Blogger
Karen (here with Mt. Shasta in background) is a geology professor emerita who aims to provide a "pocket geologist" for world travelers. Follow the blog to explore the landscapes of our planet and figure out what causes them to look the way they do.