Wildflysch?

Even though my favorite geoblog name was already taken (Highly Allochthonous), I have decided it is time to join the geoblogosphere. Wildflysch was the next most appropriate name I could come up with.

Wildflysch is a term coined by Franz Josef Kaufmann, a Swiss geologist, in 1871 to describe rocks with a strong and often folded foliation in a slate or schist matrix surrounding blocks of varying size and rock type. The term is used mostly in European geology and has been largely supplanted by the concept of a melange, recognized as a tectonic assemblage rather than a stratigraphic unit. These chaotic assemblages are generally thought to form in subduction zones, but have also been interpreted as the result of gravity-driven slumping.

The idea of chaotic assemblage under high pressures seemed like it might be an apt analogy for the way this blg is likely to come together, given the other commitments I have. This blog will also likely end up containing a mix of "blocks" on varied topics in geology and earth science education, extending, or perhaps straining, the anlaogy. As often as not, it will contain musings about questions rather than answers, but that is the nature of science and scientists.

I feel profoundly lucky that I have been able to make my love of the natural world and my love of teaching into work that I deeply enjoy and am passionate about. I look forward to sharing some of that with whoever happens by and finds this and I look forward to hearing your comments in response, whether you are pleased, provoked, or foliated.