Photo of the Week

Geology Photo of the Week #14 – Dec 2-8

Matt Herod December 5, 2012

This week’s photo, which is posted mid-week instead of at the beginning is one that I only took this Monday. I was away all day at the Royal Military College SLOWPOKE-2 reactor doing some neutron activation of cesium and calcium. We were making minute quantities of Cs-134 and Ca-41 for research purposes on the accelerator mass spectrometer. This photo is one that I was able to take while we were running the reactor. I am planning on doing a post on the SLOWPOKE reactor in the near future…sometime this month, but I thought I’d show this picture as a start.

The photo is of Cherenkov radiation in the cooling water around the reactor. Cherenkov radiation is caused by a charged particle such as an electron or a gamma photon enters the water at a speed greater than the speed of light in water. This results in a the wavelength of the particle lengthening when it enters the water and causes the water molecules to polarize (gain opposite charges) and revert rapidly back to neutral (normal charges). This change in charge in the water molecules releases the blue glow.

Cherenkov radiation at the RMC SLOWPOKE-2 reactor. (Photo: Matt Herod)

Cheers,

Matt

Geology Photo of the Week #13 – Nov 25-Dec 1

Matt Herod November 27, 2012

So the 13th photo of the week is this sweet as pic of boiling mud from New Zealand’s North Island. Both photos were taken by me in July of 2009. I had to stand at the ready for quite a while to try and get good pictures of the bubbles bursting and there were many failed attempts. On the whole I think I did pretty well.

(Photo: Matt Herod)

Hope you like them! By the way, stay tuned for some an awesome guest post later this week.

Cheers,

Matt

Geology Photo of the Week # 12 – Nov 18-24

Matt Herod November 19, 2012

A sample of native sulphur at the Canadian Museum of Nature. (Photo: Matt Herod)

Check out this beauty! AMAZING. Those crystals are a few centimetres in size, flawless and have a great colour. Unfortunately, I don’t remember where it came from. I know, I know, this is the cardinal sin, so I apologize for that. I hope you enjoy looking at it all the same.

Cheers,

Matt

Geology Photo of the Week # 10 – Nov 4-10 – A Mysterious Monster!

Matt Herod November 5, 2012

I apologize for the delay posting this. I was in Washington DC earlier this week to take in a Supreme Court hearing that never actually happened due to Hurricane Sandy. My flight out was also delayed and thus many other things in my life are delayed right now including this post.

This photo poses a bit of a conundrum…since I don’t have a clue what it is! I have an idea, but I’d like to get other opinions as well. I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. I had to climb up a 5m cliff and then take the photo of the overhang above me at full zoom with my little point and shoot. The rock is a reddish sandstone and is the bottom of a rippled bedding plane. You can kind of see the ripples at the right side of the photo. As for scale I don’t have an exact one but it is approximately 10-15cm long and 5cm wide. The location is the southern end of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, about an hour’s drive north of Port Augusta (see the map below).

So here is your challenge: what do you think that oval-like shape is? It appears to be a fossil of some description, but what is it? I am not ashamed to admit that I don’t know. Please guess in the comments section below.

(Photo:Matt Herod)

Approximately where I was staying just north of Port Augusta on the sheep and cattle station of some friends. The Flinders Ranges are just to the east.

As I said I have a suspicion what this could be although I am not sure. I believe it is an Ediacaran fossil that dates back between 635 and 545 million years ago. Indeed, the Flinders Ranges are home to a little village called Ediacara only a few hundred kilometres north of where I was and the namesake of the Ediacaran.

I suspect that these impressions are possibly of the Ediaracan creature Spriggina or maybe Dickinsonia? It appears to have bilateral symmetry and is reasonably large and ~10 cm long and 5 cm wide.

Spriggina Floundensi (Image: Wikipedia)

The other possibility that I have been considering is Dickinsonia. Dickinsonia is classified as likely an animal of an unknown kingdom. Regardless of its affiliation, or lack thereof, it also has bilateral symmetry and can be quite large. Indeed, the species D. lissa has been found up to 15 cm. It can also have similar morphology to my mysterious fossil as D. lissa can have an elongate shape.

Dickinsonia species and their morphologies. (Image: Wikipedia)

So I leave it to you to figure this out. Please let me hear your opinions since I certainly am no paleo expert, but I’d love to get to the bottom of what this mysterious fossil is.

Thanks for reading,

Matt