Taxonomy term

terri cook

Travels in Geology: Roof of the Rockies: Trail Ridge Road

Often dubbed the Highway to the Sky, 3,713-meter-high Trail Ridge Road is the signature scenic drive and sole route across Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. The winding ribbon of hairpin bends offers numerous vistas of soaring, snow-capped peaks, alpine tundra, abundant wildlife, and the colorful carpets of tiny wildflowers it hosts for a few weeks each summer after its dramatic opening.
04 Oct 2018

Getting There And Getting Around Rocky Mountain National Park

Denver International Airport (DEN) is the best arrival point for exploring Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), and a car is the most convenient way to see Trail Ridge Road and the park’s many other attractions. If you fly in, you can rent a vehicle at the airport and drive to Estes Park, the eastern gateway town, which is roughly 1.5 hours from the airport, or to Grand Lake at the west end of Trail Ridge, about a three-hour drive.

04 Oct 2018

Getting There and Getting Around Cairo

Egypt’s main gateway is Cairo International Airport (CAI), which has nonstop flights to most major Middle Eastern and European cities. EgyptAir offers direct flights to Cairo from New York City and Toronto. From other North American locations, it’s usually most convenient to fly through Dubai, Abu Dhabi or a European hub. British Airways, Emirates, Etihad, Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines are among the carriers offering connecting service.

16 Aug 2018

Travels in Geology: The pyramids of Giza: Wonders of an ancient world

At the edge of Cairo, three massive pyramids rise from the Giza Plateau’s Mokattam Formation, which comprises of layers of middle Eocene limestones and dolomites. These rocks, which display fossil evidence of their origins at the bottom of the Tethys Sea some 50 million years ago, provided the millions of multiton blocks used to construct the pyramids.
16 Aug 2018

Place-based education: Teaching geoscience in the context of location and culture

Place-based geoscience education integrates scientific and cultural knowledge of local landscapes, environments and communities with an awareness of the different meanings that place can hold for people of various cultural backgrounds. It’s a “new old” method of teaching that is experiencing a resurgence.
06 Aug 2018

Getting There And Getting Around Vancouver

Most visitors to Vancouver and the surrounding area arrive via Vancouver International Airport (YVR) or by road, approaching the city from the east along the Trans-Canada Highway or from a U.S. border post to the south. Although flights into YVR are often good value, especially as a stopover for trans-Pacific flights, it’s often cheaper for U.S. travelers to fly into Seattle, as we did, and then drive across the border. 

16 Jul 2018

Travels in Geology: From sea to sky in British Columbia

About 200 million years ago, myriad exotic terranes began accreting to form what is now British Columbia in southwest Canada. Today, the region’s tremendous topography, which rises from sea to sky over just a few kilometers, allows outdoor pursuits year-round.
16 Jul 2018

Travels in Geology: Mesozoic masterpiece: England's Jurassic Coast

England's southwestern shore is renowned for the nearly continuous 185-million-year record of Earth's history exposed in its sensational seacliffs, which record one of the world's best stratigraphic sequences from the Mesozoic Era.

18 Jun 2018

Getting there and getting around England

From North America, the cheapest and most convenient access to the Jurassic Coast is via one of London’s major airports. Nonstop service to Heathrow (LHR) and Gatwick (LGW) airports is available from many major U.S. cities.From London, the easiest way to get to (and around) the Jurassic Coast is by renting a vehicle, assuming you’re comfortable driving on the left side of the road. Because Gatwick is located on London’s southern outskirts, it offers the best escape to England’s southern coast from the hustle and bustle of the city. 

18 Jun 2018

Oceanic crust in all its glory

Our loop drive through the high Hajar Mountains boasted excellent exposures of every oceanic crustal layer. One good exposure of the sequence of mantle rocks is found in the hills surrounding Oman’s capital city Muscat. They consist of a variety of peridotite called harzburgite, which is the pyroxene-depleted residue left behind after basaltic magma is extracted. That extracted magma forms the oceanic crust, whose characteristic rock sequence is, from bottom to top: 1) dark, layered gabbro overlain by massive gabbro (the intrusive equivalent of basalt that comprises solidified magma chambers); 2) sheeted basaltic dikes (the conduits that transported lava from the magma chambers up to the ocean floor); and 3) bulbous pillow lavas, which form when basalt erupts directly into seawater.

06 May 2018

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