Skip to content

Visited countries meme

Again, I'm a bit late to the party: there's a meme going around about which countries of the world (and states of the USA) one has seen. So far,  NOLÖGIC, Looking for Detachment, Ethical Palaeontologist, Clastic Detritus, Highly Allochthonous, ReBecca's Blog, Hypo-theses, Geo­Christian, Mountain Cat Geology and Lost Geologist have posted their maps in English, and GeoBerg and Amphibol in German.

ETA (2009-01-14): TwoThree more: Through the Sandglass, NOVA Geoblog and In Terra Veritas.

Counting everywhere I've been so far, I got 21 countries (9.33% of all countries of the world). This surprised me a bit; I didn't think it would be that much. However, I never managed to cross the equator.

All countries I've visited: 21 (9.33%) .

All countries I've visited: 21 (9.33%) .

Chris of Highly Allochtonous points out that “the more interesting question is how many of the countries above I can say that I've visited geologically, in that I've actually seen and thought about the rocks”. For me, then, the picture looks a quite bleak, even if I am considering not only geology proper, but other geoscientific fields:

Countries where I have spent at least some time with a geoscientific perspective: 8 (3.55%).

Countries where I have spent at least some time with a geo­scientific perspective: 8 (3.55%).

I won't present the US map – it's abysmal (3 states, if I recall correctly).

You can make your own maps on Douwe Osinga's site.

Posted 12 Jan 2009 ⟨ fj | Geologie, unterwegs | Comments (2) ⟩

Fold at Riedberg Pass in the Allgäu, south Bavaria

At the Riedberg Pass road near Obermaiselstein in the Allgäu (South Bavaria, Germany), a recumbent fold in the Flysch is not only nicely exposed, but also easily accesible – right at the roadside, including a (small and not “offical”) parking space. (A detailed location description is in section “Getting there” below.)

Fold at Riedberg Pass, Full view.

Fold at Riedberg Pass, Full view.

Fold at Riedberg Pass, detail view (left of the traffic sign). Stick measure for scale, length 1 m.

Fold at Riedberg Pass, detail view (left of the traffic sign). Stick measure for scale, length 1 m.

Sadly, last summer I didn't have much time for photographing this fold, and the pictures didn't align nicely for a “panorama view”. (Thus the blanks in the images.)

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 5 Jan 2009 ⟨ fj | Geologie, Geotope | Comments (10) ⟩

Geologist's 100 things meme

Via the Lost Geologist I came across this 100 things meme – what have I done or seen? It was started by Geotripper; check the comments there for other people's lists. I am rather late to this, yet at the end of the year, it's a nice opportunity to look back.

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 31 Dec 2008 ⟨ fj | Geologie | Comments (1) ⟩

Rocks of the “Early Anthropocene”

Today I visited the Federal Institute for Gesciences and Natural Resources (BGR) roughly the German analog of the USGS, for a talk about the OneGeology project. Sadly, this was cancelled on short notice, but as a substitute, they offered a tour of their Geological Collection. (Thanks to Dr. Ehling.)

Besides shelves and cabinets with several ten thousands of minerals, rocks, core samples, thin and polished sections, and fossils, I saw this “marble” column:

“Aqueduct marble” (travertine) from Cologne, diameter ≈25cm. Photo taken at the Geological Collection of the BGR, Berlin.

“Aqueduct marble” (travertine) from Cologne, diameter ≈25cm. Photo taken at the Geological Collection of the BGR, Berlin.

The column had been cut from a piece of travertine that had formed in the Roman aqueduct to Cologne. (Wikipedia has an article about the aqueduct and the “aqueduct marble”.) So already 2 ka ago, people started to play an more active part in the rock cycle. Nice.

Posted 26 Nov 2008 ⟨ fj | Geologie | Comments (0) ⟩

Stratigraphy stylesheet

When preparing my post on the human arm as a geological timescale I looked up the colours for my table from the ICS’s International Stratigraphic Chart. This colour scheme is in turn based on the International Geological Map of the World. The ICS offers both the “official” CMYK and the corresponding RGB colour codes for download; the CGMW also has a table with CMYK, RGB and others.

During writing I realised that a stylesheet with these colour definitions might come in handy for future use(r)s.

Here it is: stratigraphy.css – from Hadean to Neogene.

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 24 Nov 2008 ⟨ fj | Geologie, Internet | Comments (1) ⟩

Cattle like hydrogeology too

Brian's Friday Field Foto clearly shows sheep's interest in Paleogene geology. Some years ago I learned that cattle (at least in Northern Thailand) are also quite curious about the earth sciences – hydrogeology in this case.

Mae Hia Jens mit Rind

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 9 Nov 2008 ⟨ fj | Hydrogeologie, unterwegs | Comments (1) ⟩

Geological Time-Arm

Some time ago Callan Bentley collected a few nice geological analogies. I instantly liked one of those, found in the comments: earth history as a human arm.

Geological timescale, visualised with the human arm

Numbers: ages in Ma. Unlabelled yellow stripe: Cenozoic, Me. = Mesozoic, Paläo. = Paleozoic, Proterozoikum = Proterozoic, Archaikum = Archean, Hadaikum = Hadean. Mark at 4280 Ma: oldest known rocks.

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 8 Nov 2008 ⟨ fj | Geologie | Comments (6) ⟩

Where on Google Earth #143

In what might be one of the hardest (at least longest-unsolved) WoGE puzzles, Péter has given a nice insight into Precambrian/Proterozoic parts of the South American Platform. This made me realise that I know embarassingly little about that continent – basically nothing except the Andes.

Hopefully people didn't completely give up on WoGE after that long hiatus. For those who are still around, here's the new puzzle:

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 9 Oct 2008 ⟨ fj | WoGE | Comments (4) ⟩

Very nice.

n.t.

Posted 28 Sep 2008 ⟨ fj | Allgemein | Comments (3) ⟩

Mineral Top 5

Callan Bentley asks what are the five most important minerals one should know about, and why – “if you had to introduce a non-geologist to just five of the earth's multitudinous building blocks, which ones would you choose to share?” Here's my list.

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 10 Sep 2008 ⟨ fj | Geologie | Comments (1) ⟩

Slightly disconcerting anniversary

The day before yesterday it has been 12 years since I've come to Cottbus. That means that I'm here for more than a third of my life. Back then, I definitly wouldn't have expected this.

Posted 31 Aug 2008 ⟨ fj | Allgemein, Uni | Comments (1) ⟩

Where on Google Earth #141

Ron Schott's WoGE had a nice drainage pattern in the Atacama Desert. But now for something completely different:

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 15 Jul 2008 ⟨ fj | WoGE | Comments (8) ⟩

Where on Google Earth #135

One more cycle of back-and-forth between Péter and me. After his nice patterns of the meanders of the Paraná river and my rather poor explanation thereof, it's time for a trip to the sea:

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 30 Jun 2008 ⟨ fj | WoGE | Comments (5) ⟩

Where on Google Earth #133

After the beautiful but hard to find WoGE 132 by Péter Luffi, I have one that might be a bit simpler. I guess so at least.

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 18 Jun 2008 ⟨ fj | WoGE | Comments (3) ⟩

The mural mosaic in the Alfred-Bentz-Haus, Hannover

This is my contribution to this month's Accrectionary Wedge Carnival “Aesthetic Geology”, which is hosted by Geological Musings in the Taconic Mountains. The Lost Geologist beat me to exploiting our field trip about Dimension and Ornamental stones in Berlin, so I had to come up with something else:

Mural mosaic in the Alfred Bentz Building, Hannover

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 15 Jun 2008 ⟨ fj | Accretionary Wedge | Comments (2) ⟩

Where on Google Earth #131

It seems that WoGE wants to oscillate between the Lost Geologist and me. I hope this is unsedimentary enough for him:

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 3 Jun 2008 ⟨ fj | WoGE | Comments (4) ⟩

Where on Google Earth #129

To the Lost Geologist's surprise, I rather quickly found his WoGE 128. Admittedly, due to a bit of luck and being inspired by travelling through the Harz just some days earlier…

For today's WoGE, I tried to find something less German, and after some zooming around I came across this nice-looking feature (part of which seems to extend quite a distance to the NE):

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 1 Jun 2008 ⟨ fj | WoGE | Comments (5) ⟩

Pangea Day – Geology Style

Chris from Good Schist had a nice idea: locate where you (or, more precisely, your bedrock) would have been when the Pangea supercontinent broke up in the late Triassic, 220 million years ago.

Locating southeastern Brandenburg proved a bit difficult, as the late (German) Triassic (“Keuper”) had been a time with varying sedimentation patterns, but mostly terrestric. So here's my guess:

approx. location of the German State of Brandenburg 220Ma ago

(Image taken from Ron Blakey's great paleogeographic maps.)

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 14 May 2008 ⟨ fj | Geologie | Comments (2) ⟩

Where on (Google) Earth #95

pl solved Where on (Google) Earth #94. He does not have his own Blog, so he asked me to host an image for him on my site.

Continue Reading ⟩

Posted 17 Jan 2008 ⟨ fj | WoGE | Comments (10) ⟩