Another year gone by

This is the anniversary of my starting to blog. 
I started this blog to do posts to the accrectionary wedge.  Since that blog has stopped, I've stopped using this blog.  I keep on hoping another geology blog will start up where geologist can participate and I could contribute to it.  I haven't come across anything yet.  If you know of something let me know. Till then take care.

Thoughts about marrying a geologist

I saw this at Letter to Ann Landers about marrying geologist at one of my favorite blogs to read En Tequila Es Verde.  I really liked it a lot and am including it here (this is the link that I saw it at).

Great pictures of calcite

Reading twitter and there was a discussion going on about a picture at EPOD.   Silver fox came up with this link on calcite.  I loved the pictures and want to keep it as a reference.

Site for Northwest Field books

I like to follow Northwest geology. They've listed some books and I don't want to loose track of them so here they are http://nwgeology.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/new-geology-books/   .  and now for the link .  Now if I just had some time to read them.

I was reading northwest geology and came across this Finding geologic information file for finding geologic public information.

List of famous Rocks

I was looking for information on Gibraltar and came across this list of famous Rocks and it got my attentions so here's Wikipedia famous List_of_famous_rocks.  Now I see a meme coming.

Metamorphic facies illustration & QAPF Diagram

I always love this illustration.  It has so much information to it.  I didn't know where I could find it again but Dana has used it for her Accretionary Wedge 43 and now I'm copying it here here so I can have a reference to it.

They can also be hilarious. Observe:

Metamorphic facies diagram from The Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College*

Note the upper left. One of my geo friends on Twitter posted this ages ago (I wish I remembered who), and it still makes me giggle.

Thanks Dana for sharing and using this.

3-1-12 I also came across this QAPF on igneous rocks @ Sandatlas and have found this very helpful too.
Here it is, the classification diagram used for plutonic rocks:



QAPF diagram for plutonic rocks. The diagram was created by the Subcommission of the Systematics of Igneous Rocks in the latter part of the 20th century.
old 

QAPF diagram for plutonic rocks. The diagram was created by the Subcommission of the Systematics of Igneous Rocks in the latter part of the 20th century.

Few explaining words how to read this diagram. There are four minerals or mineral groups chosen as important cornerstones of the classification. These are quartz (Q), alkali feldspars (A), plagioclase feldspars (P), and feldspathoids (F). F and Q for chemical reasons can not exist together in one plutonic rock. Other minerals may and almost certainly occur in these rocks as well but they have no significance in this classification scheme. So, the whole diagram is actually composed of two ternary plots (QAP and FAP). To use the classification, the concentration (the mode) of these minerals must be known and recalculated to make their sum 100%.
Example: a plutonic rock that contains no alkali feldspar and no feldspathoids but contains lots of pyroxenes (neglected in this diagram), plagioclase feldspar and few quartz grains is probably gabbro (located at the right edge of the diagram, little bit up from P towards Q). The diagram doesn’t say whether it is gabbro, diorite, or anorthosite. There are another criteria used to decide that. Note that this diagram is not used for all plutonic rocks. Ultramafic rocks are the most important plutonics that have separate classification diagrams.




Here's the  QAPF_diagram link to it at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAPF_diagram

I did have this at a different location since this is more appropriate for it I've moved it here.

Geologic Concept: Natural Gas Seep

NATURAL GAS SEEP
Natural Gas seeps occur when there is a fissure in the rock and natural gas can escape.  The definition for gas (Dictionary of Geological Terms- Revised Edition by American Geological Institute (1976) pg 178) is: Naturally occurring gaseous hydrocarbon produced in association with petroleum or as marsh gas. 

I went to the Eternal Flame Falls and thought this was a great example of that.