Callan Bentley
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callanbentley.bsky.social
Callan Bentley
@callanbentley.bsky.social
3K followers 1.1K following 2.6K posts
"bluebirds, bluegrass, blueschist, bluesky"
Community college geology professor in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
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callanbentley.bsky.social
Represented STEMSEAS @ the UNOLS mtg in Alexandria. 1 of my Alaskan cruise mentees shared her geology conversion experience w/ the crowd. She, STEMSEAS co-PI Sharon Cooper, & I demonstrated the program's vitality for utilizing transits of the US academic research fleet for changing student lives. ⚒️🌊
A STEMSEAS alumna recounts how important her cruise in Alaska was for motivating her to pursue geology at Wellesley. A STEMSEAS faculty mentor (Callan), PI (Sharon Cooper), and student mentee all gather for a group portrait selfie at a post-meeting reception in a brick lined bar.
November 13, 2025 at 1:31 AM
callanbentley.bsky.social
It's that most meandering time of the semester.
@emriver.bsky.social
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November 10, 2025 at 7:58 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
A few more shots from Belle Isle today. ⚒️
Virginia Commonwealth University professor James Vonesh talks about pothole ecology with PVCC geology students. Callan explains magmatic flow banding (schlieren) in the Petersburg Granite to the students and uses a Brunton compass to measure its orientation. Multiple pairs of legs standing around a pavement outcrop showing an almost circular foliated xenolith, bracketed by schleiren.
November 9, 2025 at 8:22 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Exploring potholes at Belle Isle in Richmond.⚒️
Callan perks out of a large (dry) pothole while five of his students dangle their legs in.
November 9, 2025 at 5:01 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
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GEOLOGY FOR EARTHLINGS in the style of the sign ZOHRAN FOR NEW YORK CITY
November 9, 2025 at 11:41 AM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Two piscivorous #birds seen today on the Rivanna River. 🦉
Great blue heron standing in some small rapids between large boulders. Belted kingfisher on a power line.
November 9, 2025 at 12:17 AM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Inspired by Rebecca Solnit's "Wanderlust," I took Pickles for a walk this afternoon and she got to play in Buck Mountain Creek. 1.5 miles & we didn't see a single car, another human, or another dog.
Black dog half submerged in clear creek water.
November 7, 2025 at 8:57 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
A shot of some lovely crumples -- the #FridayFold -- from the flanks of the Cristo Rey laccolith in w.TX / s.NM. Here, Cretaceous aged shale and sandstone of the Mesilla Valley Formation slid off the adjacent bulge of Eocene magma, piling up in chaotic folds as they moved. ⚒️
A wide hillside, sparsely vegetated, with a geologist in the middle to provide a sense of scale. The field of view is about 60' tall and 100' wide. Cropping out are dozens of folds of various interlimb angles and orientations.
November 7, 2025 at 6:19 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Fantastic new slab of eensy little sea urchin fossils from Oregon, courtesy of @smilodonichthys.bsky.social #FossilFriday ⚒️
A slab of rock about the length of a pencil, light gray in color, with orange circular fuzzy bordered fossils, and lots of little orange lines higgledy piggledy all over the slab. Pencil for scale.
November 7, 2025 at 1:30 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Second November praying mantis I've seen this week!
A medium sized gray praying mantis on a brick wall. Its pseudopupils look like cartoon googly eyes.
November 5, 2025 at 7:45 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
What a relief. 💙
Map of Virginia (screenshotted from the New York Times website) showing shift in voting margins since the 2024 presidential election. Almost every county & municipality in the Commonwealth shifted towards a more Democratic result.
November 5, 2025 at 11:42 AM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Colors 🍁
Burning bush in fall foliage in the foreground with other colorful trees and shrubs in the background out of focus
November 3, 2025 at 10:34 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Top cloud of the day. ☁️
Blue sky with fall foliage trees framing it. A ^ shaped cloud is all alone by itself
November 3, 2025 at 3:24 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Adjusting to the new sunset time.
Fire with camp chairs and a sunset in the background
November 2, 2025 at 10:19 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
A little autumn beauty from my walk this morning.
Forested hills with trees in autumn colors, above a brown field of grass. A white farmhouse stands where the hills meet the lowlands.
November 2, 2025 at 4:39 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Cleaning the kitchen today, and realized that my favorite kitchen knife is one I spent ~$3 on at the IKEA in College Park, MD, 25 years ago.
Three knives on a magnetic knife holder on a wall. There is a long knife with a curved top and a straight blade, a medium sized knife with a triangular point, and a cleaver.
November 1, 2025 at 4:59 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Siccar Point is a touchstone in the evolution of geological thinking: the spot where a human mind first reeled at the depths of geologic time. Visiting it was profound, connecting across the centuries with James Hutton and John Playfair, who connected across the eons with the age of the Earth. ⚒️
Callan at Siccar Point angular unconformity, wearing a bright orange t-shirt and khaki pants, with his left hand on the graywacke and his right hand on the base of the Old Red Sandstone.
November 1, 2025 at 12:02 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
For those not familiar with the source material...
October 31, 2025 at 2:05 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
My favorite Halloween costume from my past - David Byrne's "Big Suit" from the Talking Heads movie "Stop Making Sense"
Callan looking much wider and dark-haired than usual. He wears a costume consisting of a very wide suit supported internally for a wide sideways but thin front-to-back shape: slab-like, akin to Gumby. Close-up of Callan's "Big Suit" costume framed around a VHS tape of the Talking Heads concert film "Stop Making Sense," posed in the same posture as David Byrne's Big Suit is on the VHS tape cover.
October 31, 2025 at 2:04 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Asymmetric #FridayFold in Castile Formation evaporites, state line outcrop, Permian Basin, TX/NM. ⚒️
Varves white gypsum and dark brown calcite laminations where in the center of the field of view is a prominent set of layers that have been folded and overturned to the left. Particularly striking is the THICK triangles of calcite beneath the anticlines, showing I guess a detaching of the behavior of the asymmetrically folded layers relative to run of the mill symmetric folds below. Fingers for scale.
October 31, 2025 at 10:44 AM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Visiting PRI was a highlight of the NAGT Eastern Section meeting in 2023. It's such a treasure.⚒️
Slab of brown fine-grained rock featuring a dozen substantial (10-15 cm long) trilobites of several varieties. Hand for scale.
October 30, 2025 at 10:53 AM
callanbentley.bsky.social
𝙎𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙠!
(Faulting associated with the Sugarloaf landslide in McKelligon Canyon, east side of the Franklin Mtns, near El Paso, TX.)
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Photograph showing a block of limestone with vertical slickensides. A few out-of-focus people look at rocks in the background.
October 29, 2025 at 11:26 AM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Varves in Castile Formation: seasonal wet/dry variations recorded by alternation between gypsum (white) + calcite (dark) laminae.
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Photograph of rock outcrop with fingers for scale showing dozens of horizontal white and black lines The white lines are 2-3 mm thick; a few may be 4 mm top to bottom. The black lines are thinner, 1 mm maximum is my guess.
October 28, 2025 at 10:13 AM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Excited about next month's Geology Club speakers! ⚒️
Flyer for Kat Canter's presentation: "Plan, Core, Scan, Store: Facilitating Core Research" Flyer for Paul Bierman's presentation: "Why Greenland Matters to All of Us (hint: it's the ice)" Flyer for David Bapst's presentation: "Evolutionary Constraint and Convergence in the Extinct Planktonic Graptolites"
October 27, 2025 at 5:35 PM
callanbentley.bsky.social
Hosted a NOVA Annandale geology department reunion at my house tonight. This trio used to be a geology department! ⚒️
Shelley Jaye, Ken Rasmussen, and Callan Bentley looking older than they did back when they all taught together in Annandale
October 25, 2025 at 4:24 AM