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Let geology open your (tiger)eyes. It really does make up your entire world.

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Australian paleobotany challenge day 6/30 - Lepidodendron - Though they grew to enormous heights they are not related to modern trees but to club mosses. The Carboniferous period forests 350 million years ago were also home to the first land dwelling tetrapods; the ancestors of all four legged animals.

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Ludwigia obtusiformis ammonite (4.5 cm in diameter)

Bearreraig Bay, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Middle Jurassic, ~160 million years old

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Working on an ancient Australian ginkgo tree, Ginkgoites australis. Based on a fossil from Melbourne Museum that dates back 120 million years to the early Cretaceous Period. The continent of Australia was recognisable by that point, but was connected to Antarctica in the south.

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Devonian landscape

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Lepidodendron

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What the ancient CO2 record may mean for future climate change http://www.geologypage.com/2016/10/ancient-co2-record-may-mean-future-climate-change.html

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Putting the pieces of this Callixylon (ancient tree) back together had me STUMPED today! GET IT? #museumcollections #lamejokebutkindofbrilliant #fossil #paleobotany #ilovemuseums (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

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Paleontology lab - Daphnogena

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Geology Day 1: What is Geology?

Source: http://moodle2.cvuhs.org/course/view.php?id=453

Welcome to Seven Days of Science, where every day of the week is another branch of science! Tuesday is geology day - so what is geology? This week, we’re going to find out. 

Geology is the study of the Earth, and thus it is a science that looks at a wide range of questions: from how earthquakes occur, to how the earth formed, to how oil is found, and how climate change occurs. As such, geology is a diverse, complex science that has a lot of different specialties that can be studied. Geology helps you to understand how landslides and volcanic activity occur, where our energy comes from, how we find the minerals we use in our materials such as silicon and copper, and how the continents have gotten to where they are. 

Thus, Geology is both an important and practical science, as it directly deals with the sorts of things that we are immediately affected by in our everyday lives.  It gives you a unique perspective of the Earth as a unique, evolving system, and allows to put the actions and effects of humanity into a broader context. We have lived in a very short period of the Earth’s history - and already we have drastically affected the Earth’s climate, geography, and morphology - humans have changed the face of the Earth faster than many natural processes that we’re familiar with. 

In our study of Geology, we will be looking at some fairly important themes, that I will introduce here: 

The Earth is an evolving, complex system, where chemicals are cycling between different environments including types of rock, the sea, the air, and life, and everything is constantly exchanging with one another to create the planet that we are familiar with 

Plate tectonics explain much of this phenomena, from how earthquakes occur, to what’s really inside the center of the Earth, to how continents form and separate 

The Earth is very, very, VERY old. 4.57 billion years old (about), in fact. Furthermore, it was formed during the formation of our solar system - it has a lot of unique facets that sets it apart from other planets, but in other ways, it is very similar. 

Processes occurring within the planet and on the outside of the planet - for example, plate tectonics versus weathering from a river - drive a wide variety of geologic phenomena from the formation of mountains to the carving of those mountains into a wide variety of shapes; and these phenomena intimately affect our environment 

Life and the Earth are intimately linked 

Geology is a science that, therefore, incorporates aspects from all three of the “typical sciences” taught in school - from physics to chemistry to biology, it is a practical field that takes the concepts used there to understand how our planet works. However, given its extremely relevant nature to our lives and our environment, it is no less important than any of those fields. 

Geology itself has, as mentioned, a variety of sub disciplines that we will be looking at closely here: 

Engineering Geology - The study of geologic materials and how they can be used to improve our everyday lives through buildings and controlling geologic events (such as landslides).

Environmental geology - The study of the interactions between the environment and geologic materials, and how various aspects of geology can be used to solve and understand environmental problems. This will not actually be covered on Tuesdays, but rather during the Environmental Science day every Saturday (so stay tuned!). 

Geochemistry - The study of the chemical compositions of materials in the Earth and chemical reactions in nature. Though this overlaps with Chemistry (which will be every Friday), it will be covered here.

Geochronology - The study of the age of geologic materials, the Earth, and even things from space found on the Earth’s surface (which, though briefly overlapping with Astronomy, will be covered here - Astronomy, taking place every Wednesday, will focus on other topics). 

Geomorphology - The study of the formation of the landscape around us

Geophysics - The study of the physical characteristics of the Earth and the forces that affect the Earth - though this overlaps with Physics (every Thursday), it will be covered here.

Hydrogeology - The study of groundwater, how it moves, and how it affects the rocks and soil

Mineralogy - The study of the chemistry and physical properties of minerals, which shall be covered here

Paleontology - The study of fossils and the evolution of life preserved in the rocks. Though this is the combination of biology and geology, it will not be covered in either - it gets its own day, every Monday! (Biology will be on Sunday). This is due to a variety of reasons that I will explain further on Monday. 

Petrology - The study of rocks and how they form

Sedimentology - The study of sediments and how they are deposited 

Seismology - The study of Earthquakes and the Earth’s interior using earthquake measurements

Stratigraphy - The story of the succession of sedimentary rock layers - so the layers of rock you can see in the above picture

Structural Geology - The study of rock bending and breaking in response to forces

Tectonics - The study of regional geologic features such as mountains and how plate movements cause and affect them (and how the plates themselves move)

Volcanology - The study of volcanism and the products of volcanoes 

So stay tuned every Tuesday to learn about how the planet beneath our feet works, and affects every facet of our lives! 

Source: http://earthspacecircle.blogspot.com/p/earth-from-space-photos-and-wallpapers.html

Source for the text: 

Marshak, S. (2012). Earth : portrait of a planet. New York: W.W. Norton.

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Dinosaur Provincial Park, by Maija Karala

Cretaceous plants illustrated for the articles Botany for Paleoartists. You can read them here:

First part: Not all Ferns Look Like Ferns.

Second part: Fruit for the Dinosaurs.

Third part: On Grasses and not Exactly Grasses.

Fourth part: Flora in the Time of Chasmosaurs

Fifth part: Things I Saw in Madeira

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Fossil seed ferns (Alethopteris sp., Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri, and Neuropteris ovata). 300 m.y.o. St. Clair, PA. 185mm. 

One of the coolest fossil hunting experiences I’ve had. The amount of detail preserved in these fossils is incredible—some appear as if the leaves had just fallen! Exploring this area was like being transported back in time. Looking at a fossil like the one pictured here, it is not difficult to imagine the ancient carboniferous swamp coming back to life. 

For me, fossils are all about stress relief, and keeping things in perspective; a sobering—yet comforting—reminder of how briefly we are here, and where our priorities should lie. When I feel overwhelmed, it is relieving to recall how petty our day-to-day struggles are in the grand scheme of things. Life goes on.

©Zachary A. Cava

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Candid shots of being a nerd.

Got to present my painting and research one last time this semester for Roanoke Alumni. Also helping introduce the pilot of the Dragon Research Collaborative museum exhibit supporting paleobotany education and the connections between Dragon mythology and Carboniferous plant fossils. Gonna miss this. #dragon #dragons #DragonRC #rc #roanoke #roanokecollege #paleonerd #paleobotany #paleoartists #paleobiology #paleontology #carboniferous #lepidodendron #scales #vmnh #naturalhistory #ethnobotany #research #rcresearch #painting #painters #presentation

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"Snaggletooth Shark (Hemipristis elongata) fossil shark tooth from my Carmel Church Quarry excavation earlier this month. Approximately 14 million years old, Miocene epoch from the calvert formation. Trying to get more vertebrate work in plus we got so many I might as well draw one!"

Look familiar? Wasn’t quite happy with my sketch so I spent about 6 hours reworking this piece for VMNH. Much better.

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Time-Lapse Illustration up on Eastern Hemlock

Finally got another time-lapse up on my Art and Gaming Youtube channel if you all haven’t seen it yet. Just inked up a piece the other night of a Lepidodendron sp. leaf cushion, otherwise known as a scale of a scaled lycospid tree from the Carboniferous period (around 300-325 million years ago). Just a quick bit of how I go about inking from the sketches. 

Expect more time-lapse and art videos on this channel as time permits! Subscribe, like, comment, all that jazz if you’re into it. Any suggestions for the next one?

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Snaggletooth Shark (Hemipristis elongata) fossil shark tooth from my Carmel Church Quarry excavation earlier this month. Approximately 14 million years old, Miocene epoch from the calvert formation. Trying to get more vertebrate work in plus we got so many I might as well draw one!

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Stereo zoom microscope based illustration working with Carboniferous Lepidodendron fossils that I was working on the other day at VMNH. More illustrations for my publication surrounding my thesis.

(Translation: check me out working with some of the fossils I’ve been studying for three years that I’m in a mad dash against time to finish for my publication on 310 million year old forests!)