ICELAND – We spent Sunday morning discussing all of the features that we’ve seen during our reconnaissance investigations. After comparing notes, we defined several lithofacies, or mappable units with specific lithologic features. Our coherent lithofacies include pillow lavas, dikes, and intrusions while our fragmental lithofacies are units like volcanic breccia and lapilli tuff. By the end of the morning, Team Iceland was ready for their first group assignment: map a section of the quarry wall.
The students worked diligently to record comprehensive field notes.
Image of a pillow lava that shows some of the features the students were looking for: radial columnar joints, glassy rind, and interbedded hyaloclastite.
The students celebrated the completion of their mission with lunch by large mining equipment.
I love seeing petrologists doing facies mapping — and doing it so well!