by Kellen GundersonThe Ridge and Valley province of the Appalachians is a fold and thrust belt that formed during the Alleghanian orogeny (260-325 Million years ago). The remnants of that ancient mountain belt consist of a series of linear ridges and valleys that can be followed for hundreds of kilometers. There are a series of […]
from Kellen Gunderson: Western South Dakota contains two gems that are often forgotten in discussions of great landscapes of the American Rocky Mountains. Just off I-80 near the Wyoming border lies the famous South Dakota Black Hills Mountains and Badlands National Park. Before the Black Hills became the holy mountains of the Lakota Sioux Tribe, […]
Iceland was recently described to me as “Disneyland for Geologists”. The meaning of that phrase is obvious. Iceland is littered with the volcanoes, glaciers, and active faults that make geologists’ blood start pumping. But there are many places in the world that have all of these different features. What separates Iceland apart is the overwhelming […]
Sometimes a geologist will compare a mountain belt to a living organism. Just like organisms, mountain belts are dynamic systems that experience life cycles. Mountains go through a fragile infancy, a youth filled with rapid growth, a commanding adulthood, and an eventual decay into old age. Sometimes though, the entrance into old age is not […]
Kellen Gunderson on Death Valley. Kellen (website) is a PhD Candidate at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, United States. He is a tectonic geomorphologist currently working on spatial and temporal scales of fault slip rate variability in the Northern Apennines, Italy. Death Valley (part 1) To most people Death valley seems desolate. […]
