Medellín: Colombian city with a notorious history
Medellín is the second largest city in Colombia with about 4 million people. It is situated at 1,500 m (4900 ft) elevation, which in equatorial latitudes (it's at 6°N) is the altitude for an ”eternal spring” climate. Not too hot, not too cold—it's just right! My first post explained the tectonic setting of Columbia: https://landscapes-revealed.net/bienvenidos-a-colombia-welcome-to-the-northwest-corner-of-south-america/. In this post, I'll focus...
Bienvenidos a Colombia: welcome to the northwest corner of South America
In my continuing quest to learn more about South America’s geology, culture and history, I traveled for a month (mid February–mid March) in Colombia, located in the northwestern corner of South America. Colombia is at the northern end of the Andes, the longest mountain range on our planet. It is the only South American country with coasts on both the...
Why are the Dolomite mountains so tall?
My first post about the Italian Dolomites described how the carbonate platforms formed from the hard parts of organisms living in shallow parts of a warm, tropical ocean (https://landscapes-revealed.net/trekking-through-an-ancient-sea-in-the-italian-dolomites/). The second post described other rock types in the Dolomites, namely igneous rocks and sedimentary rocks transported to the ocean from land (https://landscapes-revealed.net/not-all-of-the-rocks-in-the-italian-dolomites-are-dolomite/). Although created near sea level, the highest peaks...
Not all of the rocks in the Italian Dolomites are dolomite
As explained in my last post (https://landscapes-revealed.net/trekking-through-an-ancient-sea-in-the-italian-dolomites/), the Dolomites were named after a French geologist, whose name was also given to the dolomite mineral. Indeed, the spectacular white peaks of dolomite are what catches the eye when in the Dolomite mountains. But there are other rock types with clues to the geologic history of the region, notably thick sequences of...
Trekking through an ancient sea in the Italian Dolomites
The main purpose of our August–September trip to Italy was to explore the much-lauded Dolomite Mountains, located in northeastern Italy (Trentino-Alto Adige province) just a few hours north of Venice. The gleaming steep-sloped white mountain blocks separated by verdant valleys were just as spectacular as we had been led to believe! This view is northeastward from Piz Boe (see 3-D...
Rock art in Ravenna, Italy
In August, on our way back north from Gubbio, we stopped at Ravenna, a small city famous for its 5–6th century Byzantine mosaics. Ravenna is just 2 hours south of Venice and is well worth a 2–3 day visit. The purpose of this post is two-fold. (1) To introduce readers to a place with incredible interior art work mostly made...
Discovering what killed the dinosaurs in Gubbio, Italy
Our 4-week trip to Italy in August and September was mainly focused on trekking in the Dolomite Mountains—those posts to come later! During the planning process, I realized the town of Gubbio is located just 4.5 hours south of Venice, where we were flying in and out of. We had to go there! A rock outcrop just east of Gubbio...
Iceland’s glaciers and features they create
Like other high-latitude locations on Earth, glaciers in Iceland have advanced and retreated many times during the past 2.5 million years, since we've been in a global Ice Age. The last glacial maximum was about 20,000 years ago, when ice completely covered the island and extended up to 200 km (120 miles) beyond the coastline to cover the marine shelf....
Volcanoes galore in Iceland
Iceland's "double whammy" position overlying both a mid-ocean ridge and a mantle hot spot produces vast outpourings of lava that have built the island up from the seafloor. Because of the hot spot, the volume of erupted material is about 10 times that found at normal mid-ocean locations that don't coincide with hot spots. In this post, I'll show some...
Standing between tectonic plates in Iceland
Sitting in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean is the island country of Iceland. Visiting Iceland is on pretty much every geologist's "bucket list" because of its unique above-water position on a plate boundary where two plates are moving apart from each other (i.e., diverging). During a trip there with other geologists in July, I explored the landscapes of...
Rock architects in the 9th–13th centuries: Chaco Canyon National Historic Park and World Heritage Site
There is evidence that people have been inhabiting the region we now call northern New Mexico for at least 10,000 years. But starting in the mid-800s, the Native Chaco people began to build massive, multi-story stone buildings—referred to as “great houses”—that they continued to expand for more than 300 years. In early June, we visited the Chaco Canyon historic park...
The dinosaur that went to space: the state fossil of New Mexico
Who knew that New Mexico has one of the world's most famous dinosaur species? I sure didn't until our recent visit to Ghost Ranch, located about an hour north of Santa Fe (see my last post about Georgia O'Keefe and her life in that region: https://landscapes-revealed.net/the-rocks-of-georgia-okeefe/). It turns out that a Ghost Ranch quarry has yielded hundreds of Coelophysis dinosaur...
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.