Yesterday, I took a little tour out along old Route 55 through West Virginia, the road that was replaced by new Route 55, also a source of cool outcrops. My host was Maitland S., a retired gentleman who occasionally takes geology classes at NOVA. We saw a bunch of cool stuff out there, and I'll share it all with you.

First, check out these lovely pyrolusite dendrites:





Pyrolusite is MnO2, and often grows in these beautiful branching forms. It's totally an inorganic process, but the visual similarity to botanical branching makes pyrolusite dendrites a particularly insidious form of pseudofossil. Here, it's growing on limestone, presumably the Devonian Helderberg Group -- though I'll have to check on that to be sure.

Labels: field trips, fossils, minerals, valley and ridge