Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Went to Europe

yeah!

Let me just say this: it was awesome. The French Alps are something that every geologist (and every person visiting europe) should see.

A pic:



Beers in the French alps.

I'm gonna post more pics from time to time, but for now, Just know, that you need to visit the french alps.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

looks pretty sweet! do you suppose the french alps are airy or pratt compensated?

Joe said...

Damn you and your Physics!

I'm not sure, I think that you'd have to use the Airy Compensation, since the Alps (french, italian, etc..) are all in existence due to crustal thickening.

I can't remember the specific geology of the alps in this part of the world, But I remember the massif and Flysch (sp?) geology there: its like a foreland fold and thrust belt with foreland sediments.

of course Mt. Blanc and the mountains in the background of this picture are granitic, so maybe there's some basement involved thrusting.

I don't know, dammit, now I have to fucking read some geology today on it.

Anonymous said...

it turns out (not that i would know without looking it up!), that uplift due to crustal thickening (as you indicated) is almost always Airy compensated. this is supported by the fact that the gravity field over the French Alps is consistent with a Bouger-type anomaly.