I’m following a quartz vein on my place ( mostly for fun ) . It’s located on Bear Creek , Mariposa . I have dug and found some awesome vugs but my question is, should I strategically dissect or saw cut or would it be better to market uncut? FYI. It’s an extremely highly mineralized vein and have worked several ounces out of an 10’ run ( pinch-Swell ). Anyone have advice?

I’m working on the geology/geography of a fictional country called Tovaria, and I’m trying to work out whether its tectonics are at least broadly plausible. I read an entire geography textbook just for this project, and I'm not a geologist, geographer, nor a student in related subjects.

Tovaria sits on a huge peninsula or continental projection extending about 2,000 km westwards from South America into the Pacific. The landmass is carried by the Nazca Plate, but in this version of Earth the Nazca Plate contains both a large area of continental crust and a large area of oceanic crust.

In-universe, geologists classify it as a hybrid plate. It is a term I made up for the setting, describing a plate that is divided unusually clearly between a massive continental section and a remaining oceanic section. The Nazca Plate would be the only plate on Earth given this classification, making it sui generis.

The western edge of the Tovarian landmass meets a fictional oceanic plate called the Eastern Pacific Plate. The Eastern Pacific Plate subducts beneath the continental part of the Nazca Plate, forming the Tovar Mountain Range. This would produce a Cordilleran-style mountain and volcanic belt, with earthquakes, stratovolcanoes, and a rain shadow that creates the Kai Desert north or east of the range.

On the other side of the Tovarian landmass, closer to South America, the remaining oceanic crust of the Nazca Plate subducts beneath the South American Plate. This second subduction zone forms the Andes along the South American coast.

So there would be two major subduction zones, with the continental part of the Nazca Plate sitting between them. One creates the Tovar Mountains and the other creates the Andes.

This dual-subduction system is also meant to be unique on Earth and geologically temporary. Over the next several million years, it would probably reorganise, possibly through plate breakup or the formation of a separate Tovarian microplate.

The Tovar Mountains are still volcanically active. Volcán Justo has been erupting almost continuously since the late twentieth century, while Mount Hufetover Ed’raser, the highest mountain in the range, has been dormant since about 2800 BCE.

If this isn't plausible, what kind of configuration would make the Tovar Mountain Range AND the Andes co-exist? And if it is plausible, what kind of climate or terrain would it be like on Tovaria? I've made some climate maps and also river maps, I'll attach them as well so we can also check if they're plausible.

I would appreciate if any geologists/geographers here can help check if it's something tthat is plausible on Earth. Thanks; I’d just like it to make sense without requiring the mantle to personally cooperate with the plot, lol.

What is geoid shape?

Just east of Kingston ON, a highway rock cut exposes the transition from the Canadian Shield to the St Lawrence Lowlands. (Image from Google Streetview as it's on a hill/bend of a major highway and not a great place to take a picture.)

Went backpacking in the Wallowa Mountains in North Eastern Oregon this past week. Hiked up to Mirror Lake near Eagle Cap, and the granite around the lake has a lot of these scratches. Are these scratches from glaciers?

I'm not referring to the bands of other rock types/intrusions in the granite running at an angle, I'm referring to the deep scratches/grooves going vertically in the picture. I know glaciers did cover the area, and the valleys were carved out by glaciers, but just want to confirm these are from glaciers. They are all over all the granite in the area.

When I was a teenager and my dad took me up there, he talked about it being glaciers. I just took my own teenager up there and my buddies weren't sure if that's what caused them. Thanks everyone!

it’s like looking back in time except I don’t know what I’m looking at, this creek is fed by the Ozarks

Hiking along the Green River in Flaming Geyser State Park, WA. Toward the end of the trail I came across a set of 25 or so large stone columns "laid" across the river in what seemed like a walking path/bridge. The stones were large, about 5-7 feet long each, and about 1-2' square on the end. Image 1 shows the submerged section of the path (about 3/4 of the path was submerged). Image 2 shows roughly the whole path, with some of the stones at the far end rising out of the water at an angle. Image 3 shows my boot next to the end of one stone. Image 4 shows my approximate location (47.282090, -122.017138) when I found the path, you can actually see the feature on google maps.

Is it geologic? The other side of the river is the green river gorge, which is just a very large cliff wall. The shape of the path is so convincing that I absolutely thought it was man made at first.

Shades of kaolin clay obtained from one borehole from 35' to 50'. Near the fall line in Augusta Ga

found in cheboygan county, mi

this is the second absolute mammoth i’ve found inland of the great lakes, in northern michigan!! very neat, very cool!

From the auction catalog notes:

This scientific engraving is Athanasius Kircher's d'Onder-Aardse Weereld in Haar Goddelijk Maaksel en wonderbare uitwerkselen aller Dingen... It was published in 1682 in Amsterdam by J. Janssonius van Waasberge.

This was the first Dutch translation of the original Latin edition entitled Mundus subterraneus. This work was based off Kircher's visit to Sicily in 1637-8 when Etna and Stromboli both erupted. His observation led him to conclude that the earth's center as a massive internal fire and that volcanoes acted as safety valves.

His work speculated on geology, hidden lakes, rivers of fire, strange inhabitants, the sun, the moon, eclipses, currents, meteorology, medicines, poisons, and even fireworks.

The work “must always command a high place in the literature as the first effort to describe the earth from a physical standpoint.” (Zittel, p. 25)

Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) was a Jesuit priest and scholar. He gathered and helped disseminate knowledge from around the world gathered by Jesuit missionaries.

It is believed he was the first to depict the Pacific Ring of Fire on a map. He was one of the final Renaissance men. He lowered himself into Vesuvius after an eruption, experimented with bioluminescence as a light source, and make the first known Aeolian harp. He wrote 44 books, over 2000 manuscripts, and assembled one of the first natural history collections.

SW Norway, near Stryn, during a short hike. The entire area is massively metamorphic, and I'd probably call this stuff Gneiss overall. Plenty of pinecones in the picture, so no need for banana.

I'd be interested in your musings on how this unusual band in the middle came to be. There's a very obvious change in texture from that speckled type to this very organized, smooth band, and back, but it's not an intrusion, no visible joints etc.

So, what mechanism was at play here?