I noticed these strange formations on my vacation to the island of Gotland this summer and they baffle me. The stone is Silurian limestone. Anyone knows what they are? They are just too common to be random weathering. A trace fossil?

Oh you crazy Americans…:)

Well, I didnt get around writing much yet about Swedish geology, and now there is that lovely Swedish version of the pagan ritual of midsummers eve coming up this Friday where Im probably going to get ridiculusly drunk and go of killing christians like a good old viking. But when I get back I will write some about my bachelor-project. Its to do with doing a petrographic study of a boat axe from the neolithic stone age. Stay cool and stay tuned! Happy midsummer - Glad midsommar!

I just recently came back from a week long trip to the province of Blekinge here in Sweden. Its an awsome province with beautiful deep forests and I can recommend a trip to it to anyone who loves nature. But be sure to bring something against mosquitos and ticks. The humid climate near the Baltic sea makes it a paradise for ticks.

It was a course in making maps of the bedrock, the petrology and structures. Mostly we found intrusive granites and more or less gneiss and granite-gneiss with pegmatite intrusions - the most common types of bedrock in here south east of Sweden. But one unusual loose rock caught our attention.

The theory my professor gave us was that it probably was a piece of diabas with (from the intrusion loosened) megacrysts of pegmatites in it (microcline and red quartz). The area is rich in pegmatites and diabase intrusions so the theory of origin made sence, however he had never seen anything like it before and had to base this on a qualified assumption. I presume its an unusal find or has someone found anything similar? No, its not my finger…

Any experts on Cretaceous fossils from Ignaberga in Sweden out there that can help me? At that time, around 80 Ma it was a archipelago-like enviroment, rich on belemnites, brachiopods and shark) Ive got two small remains that I want to know what they could be.

I found a very unusual rock last fall that I have some trouble identifying. Since this being Sweden the damn glaciers of the Ice age transport rocks all over the place (or at least from the north to the south). So the provenance of the stone is basically unkown except that it must be something possible for Sweden and neighbouring countries. I have never seen anything like it here in Sweden but perhaps some of my english speaking readers out there have at least a qualified guess to offer me. It doesnt look like any sedimentary rock that Ive seen anywhere in Sweden before. I have my guess of course, but I want your oppinion on it.

As you can se from the images its some sort of sedimentary rock. It basically looks like some form of clay (or silt) stone with stripes of quarts sand in it and rich in Iron (but that could of course be something it was exposed to simply). I havent actually weighed it, but it feels quite heavy, perhaps because of the iron?. The larger granule/grain in the middle is also quartz as far as I can tell.

Update: Added two more closeups. 

An 4.7 earthquake must seem like nothing to people living in places like California. But in Sweden, where that just happened with the epicenter a couple of miles from where I live its a big deal. By far the strongest earthquake in Sweden for a century.

All happening along the Tornqvist-zone. The ancient fault line zone streching through my home province Skåne (Scania). Ive written som more about in in my Swedish geoblog.

More info

Yes Im alive, but this blog is not. As most of you know by know I write only on my Swedish blog and Antimonite has faded away. I just dont have the time or energy to write two blogs.

But if someone cares: Ive just added an easy-to-use gadget on my Swedish geoblog Terra Incognita so that you can translate the content to English (or any other prefered language). This is of course not in any way sensational - just wanted to make it easy for any visitor so I made it possible to do so through a simple gadget. The gadget is located in the left sidebar at the bottom. Impossible to miss since it comes with a big ass Google logotype.

Ive decided to do this since its very unlikely that I will post that much here on Antimonite in the (near) future. So if youre interested in Swedish geology (on a basic level), youre welcome to translate my blog Terra Incognita and keep on reading that one instead of this. Of course, the translations in general are really bad - but you will probably at least understand the content - and if not - its ok to post comments on the blog in English - ask me and I will translate.

Update: Have added the translation-gadget as an option in the topmenu off Terra Incognita instead. 

Yesterday I was on a fieldtrip to the south eastern regions of Scania (which is the most southern Province of Sweden, where I live). It took me among many things to a very small village by the ocean called Simrislund. This place is interesting geological-wise since its one of few places where Cambrian quartzite is very abundat at the surface as bedrock. Most of the bedrock is smooth and grinded flat by the last iceage. Sprinkled all over the landscape and the shoreline is oilshale since this used to cover the cambrian rock but nowdays is eroded away. Further inland the shale is still intact as bedrock. The shale is also full of fossils like brachiopods and trilobites.

One other interesting aspect of the Cambrian quartzite is the human impact on it. At Simrislund there are many rocks with carvings on it from the Scandinavian bronzeage over 3000 years ago. This makes this place both culturally and geologically worth a visit.

Ive just started a new blog. A Swedish blog on geoscience. A sister to this blog basically. So if you dont speak Swedish, you probably couldnt care less. I will probably update the Swedish blog more often also. But this blog (Antimonite) will remain and I will write posts on Swedish geoscience for the international readers also in the future.

http://terraincognita.blogsome.com/