Thursday, July 16, 2026

Drunk on Paleontology - Finca El Origen Reserva Malbec


The next Drunk on Paleontology is for Finca El Origen Reserva Malbec from Finca El Origin  out of Mendoza, Argentina.


Clearly this is a wonderful example of Drunk on Paleontology, with the large ammonite fossil spread across the bottle. But before we even get into the fossil, lets take a look at the geology itself. The back of the bottle has a geological description of the wine local:


Text from the bottle:
First is was an ocean. Then mountains and later a mountain range. Now it is home to the high-altitude vineyards that produce wines with a mountain-inspired personality and a complexity and character only this terroir can bestow.
Their website has a little more information on the source of their logo, or at least the inspiration for their logo:
Not only is our vineyard ideal for precision viticulture, but it also the witness of history: A Nautilus fossil was found while preparing the land for winegrowing. These sea snails from the Jurassic period are silent bystanders of the formation of the Andes, which were once an ocean.
Location map from Finca El Origen's website

The winery is located in Los Chacayes, which is in the Valle de Uco, Mendoza, Argentina. It sits right at the eastern base of the Andes Mountains, just over the border from Santiago, Chile. The Andes Mountains, though, are a jumbled up mess of geology, and I can't find very many definitive sources for geological units. I have found two websites that seem to offer some information. 

Geological map of the Mendoza region around Los Chacayes from the Geological Map of South America. Los Chacayes is highlighted with the star. 

The above map is from the "Geological Map of South America", and while a useful source for a general map of the entire continent, it doesn't have very many details for the specific unit we are looking at. Unit "203" on the map, the unit that encompasses the entirety of Los Chacayes, is identified on the map as being from Permian to Triassic in age and comprised of rhyolitic volcanic rocks. And that's about it. Even going to the original document doesn't provide much more information. 


Geological map of the Mendoza region around Los Chacayes from the Mapa Geológico Bicontinental de la República Argentina. Los Chacayes is highlighted with the star.

This second map also has the same shape of the unit that we are interested in, identified as PTSs. But they have a little more information on the unit. Here it is identified as "Siliciclastic and volcanic rocks, Permian to Triassic in age". And that's about it. Obviously this location would once have been an ocean basin, due to the ammonite fossil found within, but other than that it looks like we are limited at the moment. Looking at the fossil itself: 


The ammonite fossil on the bottle is clearly an artistic rendering of a the ammonite fossil, and I think it is not actually the fossil that was found on the vineyard locality. This is because it seems to match a drawing of an ammonite fossil done over 100 years ago. 

Plate 44 Ammonites in Haekel's 1899 Kunstformen der Natur.


The illustration on the wine bottle seems to match ammonite on the center right in the image above, if we flip the image and adjust for the curvature of the bottle. The lines on the ridges match location placement and numbers, as well as the knobs on the inner part of the swirl.

Comparison of the Finca El Origen ammonite and Haekel's 1899 illustration

The degree of similarity is too much to ignore. Haekel's ammonite illustration is of the ammonite Douvilleiceras mammillatum. While Douvilleiceras mammillatum can be found in many places across the globe, there have been no instances of discovery within Argentina. The closest location to this, is one instance within Brazil, and regardless, Douvilleiceras mammillatum is a lower to middle Cretaceous age fossil (Aptian - Albian), meaning that the rocks within the vineyard are much too old to house this fossil (they are Permian to Triassic in age, at least 80 million years older than Douvilleiceras mammillatum). Therefore the fossil on the bottle is clearly not the one that was found. 

Well then, what was the fossil found?

Picture of the other ammonite from the Finca El Origen website.

On the winery's website, they have two pictures of real fossil ammonites among the description of why there's an ammonite on the bottle. The first ammonite pictured is a clear image of a split and polished ammonite (pictured above). Despite being a paleontologist myself, I am far from an expert on ammonites. From my knowledge of ammonites it is exceedingly difficult to identify them with any accuracy based on the internal structure. However, comparing this to other ammonites, this example appears to be an ammonite from much later in the time period, like the illustration on the bottle. From what I can tell, this looks like a cut and polished ammonite from the Albian (middle Cretaceous) of Madagascar. It seems to resemble a Cleoniceras ammonite, like the one pictured below. But in general, this ammonite pictured is again, impossible to have occurred within the time period and region of the rocks within the winery. I have reached out to an ammonite specialist and if I hear anything back I will update. 

Cleoniceras besairei from fossilmall.com

The final ammonite pictured on the winery's website, is shown below. While this is clearly a staged photo, we will assume that this is a real fossil and that it has the potential to have been found within the region. 

Picture of an ammonite from the Finca El Origen website.

Searching for ammonites within Argentina, had found several examples of Jurassic or Cretaceous ammonites that occurred within the Mendoza region, however I did find a few examples of Triassic age ammonites.  

Ammonite pieces from Riccardi et al., 2004.

The above images are of fragments of the ammonite Choristoceras found within the Mendoza region of Argentina in Riccardi et al., 2004. Within the article they state that "Ammonoids in the Triassic part of the section are quite rare and so far only part of a whorl and several external moulds have been found." But with the skewed winery ammonite photograph as our example, this appears to be a match, or at least as close of a match as I can be sure of. Choristoceras is also a Triassic age ammonite that went extinct at the end of the Triassic, making it seem like a likely contender. 

Choristoceras illustration from Steinmann, 1890. 

And some images of complete Choristoceras fossils (pictured above) do tend to resemble the image used on the bottle (although the image used is clearly a recreation of Haekel's image). 

Stylized ammonite fossil on the top of the bottle. 

But regardless, the design on the top of the wine bottle of a stylized ammonite fossil is pretty freaking cool.

References
https://fincaelorigen.com/en/home-2/
https://fincaelorigen.com/en/history/
https://fincaelorigen.com/en/reserva-malbec-2/
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=7ecc9e7e0c1f46c8ad44f5e5b476150d
https://www2.sgc.gov.co/MGC/Paginas/gmsa5M2019.aspx
https://sigam.segemar.gov.ar/mapstore/#/viewer/302
https://archive.org/details/KunstformenderN00Haec/page/n230/mode/1up
Haeckel, Ernst. "Kunstformen der Natur [1899]." Die einhundert Farbtafeln im Faksimile mit beschreibendem Text, allgemeiner Erläuterung und systematischer Übersicht: 35
https://paleobiodb.org/classic/checkTaxonInfo?taxon_no=314519&is_real_user=1
http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/ammonites/ammo63/ammonite63.htm
https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/bitstream/handle/11336/81386/CONICET_Digital_Nro.3f88447b-29b1-455f-882f-23ee5e4272c7_X.pdf
Steinmann, Gustav. Elemente der Paläontologie. Vol. 2. W. Engelmann, 1890.
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Monday, June 29, 2026

Drunk on Astronomy - Eclipse Red Wine

The next Drunk on Astronomy post is for Eclipse Red Wine from the Heron Hill Winery in Hammondsport, NY. 


This is probably the most straightforward Drunk on Geology post I have done to date. But per Webster's Dictionary, an eclipse is an:
obscuration of the light of the sun by intervention of the moon (solar eclipse), or of the moon by intervention of the earth (lunar eclipse).
Eclipse diagrams (Image courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica)

Looking at the solar eclipse first, I have been lucky enough to have seen a mostly complete solar eclipse. When I lived in Utah, there was a solar eclipse that reached near totality where I lived on August 21st, 2017. You can read my full account of the process of getting these photos on my post HERE. 

My photo of the 2017 Solar Eclipse from Utah (partial solar eclipse from my vantage


The complete progression of my solar eclipse photos


As mentioned in the definition, a solar eclipse is when the moon blocks the sun. Now obviously the moon is much, much smaller than the sun. The moon is also much, much closer to the Earth than the sun, so the size differences almost make the moon and sun appear to be the same size per our vantage point on the Earth. Think of it as looking at your thumb right next to your eye versus at arm's length. At arms length your thumb appears smaller than when it is next to your eye but the size of your thumb did not change. 

The almost near identical appearance of sizes of the moon and the sun means that when we do get a solar eclipse it will only appear as a total solar eclipse for a narrow band of people on Earth. And since the Earth rotates, that narrow band with move in a predictable line across the Earth during the daily rotation. The map above shows the map of the Solar Eclipse I photographed in August of 2017. 

August 21, 2017 Solar Eclipse path map. Image courtesy of the American Astronomical Society. 

Percentages of coverage during an eclipse are known as the magnitude.  The magnitude is the fraction of the eclipsed body covered by the eclipsing body. During a solar eclipse, the magnitude refers to the fraction of the sun covered by the moon. A total solar eclipse would be equal to 1.0 (which equals "totality") and anything off of that totality line would be less than one. For my images of the solar eclipse above, I took them at the ~0.9 magnitude line.

There is an interesting note, that even though the moon and sun appear approximately the same size in the sky, they are not exactly the same size. The moon is a hair smaller in appearance. This means that if you were to be in the exact center line of totality, a fringe of the sun would appear as a halo around the eclipsing moon causing an effect known as the "ring of fire". 

Notably this wine is produced and bottled with solar energy.

When we look at the position of the moon in relation to the sun and Earth, over the course of a month, the moon completes an orbit around the Earth (hence the term month essentially means 1 moon orbit). During the moon's orbit, the moon goes from a new moon, where it is not visible at night, to a full moon, where it is completely visible, and back again. The diagram below illustrates the position of the moon in relation to the Earth and sun during all phases of the moon. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon is in New Moon phase because that is the only time the moon is directly between the Earth and sun. 


The lunar eclipse rearranges the order of the moon, earth, sun. Instead of the moon being between the Earth and the Sun, now the Earth is between the sun and moon, during the Full Moon phase of the moon. Therefore, a lunar eclipse is when the moon is covered by the shadow of the Earth. And since the Earth is much, much larger than the moon, the shadow is able to cover way more space than just the moon. Allowing for more frequent lunar eclipse viewings over larger areas of the Earth's surface. In actuality, during a lunar eclipse anyone on the dark half (AKA nightside) of the Earth have the potential to witness it. 

Timelapse of a lunar eclipse via Space.com

The Earth experiences a lunar eclipse about 2 to 4 times per year. One would expect it to occur more often, since the alignment of the Sun-Earth-Moon does occur about 12-13 times a year, however the moon's orbital plane is off of this alignment and only lines up perfectly those 2 to 3 times per year. And, unlike a solar eclipse, where the moon completely obscures the sun, the shadow of the Earth can't completely obscure the moon. The result is the moon gets covered in a deep red shadow. So even though the moon is "eclipsed" it is still completely visible. 


Interestingly enough, when we look at the Eclipse bottle we notice two design choices on the bottle. 
  1. There are stars across the bottle. During a total solar eclipse, it is possible to see stars out, since the vast majority of the sun's light is blocked. This only occurs during totality though, and only the brightest of stars are visible. Therefore the partial eclipse seen on the bottle would not result in stars being visible. 
  2. The design choice for the crescent shaped object makes it look like the moon. I assume this was just a design choice for the crescent sun during an eclipse and not a "waning gibbous" moon (as illustrated in the diagram above). Since the moon moves through phases continuously over the course of the month, a waning gibbous moon would represent when the moon was not directly in line with the Earth and sun, and therefore would not be an eclipse. This also can't be a lunar eclipse since, as we noted above, the moon is still completely visible during a lunar eclipse, it is only tinged a deep red color. So, since the wine is named "Eclipse", we would have to assume it is indeed the sun and not the moon illustrated and meant to be a partial solar eclipse. 
References
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Thursday, October 30, 2025

Drunk on Volcanology - Yellowstone Cabernet Sauvignon

The next Drunk on Geology is for the Yellowstone National Park Lodges Xanterra Travel Collection Cabernet Sauvignon from Rutherford Wine Company out of St. Helena, CA.


This wine has a two-fold geological feature about it. One: It is a wine made exclusively for Yellowstone National Park, and therefore is essentially a "Yellowstone Wine". And Two, there is that picture of a waterfall on the bottle. That waterfall is the Lower Falls along the Yellowstone River, which is coincidently the largest waterfalls within Yellowstone National Park. First up, we'll discuss the geology of Yellowstone National Park itself. For a more in-depth look at the geology of Yellowstone, please check out my Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures post on Yellowstone NP.  

Yellowstone's magma plume below the surface of the Earth. Image courtesy of National Geographic.

While it does not look like a "typical" volcano, Yellowstone is one of the largest volcanoes on the planet, however most of that volcanic mass is "hidden" below ground. Yellowstone is what is known as a "hotspot" volcano. This means that magma rises from the mantle towards the surface from one location.  



Movement of the North American plate across the Yellowstone Hotspot. Image courtesy of NPS.gov.

This hotspot is essentially fixed in place, however the plates on the surface of the Earth continue to move across it. The movement of the plate across the hotspot creates a string of volcanoes, where the volcano furthest away on the string is the oldest. It also means most of the volcanoes along the string are likely non-active, with only the ones currently over the hotspot having any form of volcanic activity. Another well known hotspot volcano is Hawaii, where you can easily see the string of volcanoes over time with the current hot spot being located under the Big Island. In the image above you can see the string of former locations where the North American plate used to reside over the Yellowstone Hotspot as the plate moved towards the southwest over the last 16 million years.

Image on the wine bottle of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone

Pictured on the bottle is an artistic rendering of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. This is the upper limit, and the start, of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was formed by the intermingling of a few factors. One of the factors is that all of the very hot magma beneath the park lifted up the entire region. This force that pushed the land upwards is very similar to that seen at the Grand Canyon, where, as the ground moved upwards, the river within the landscape eroded downwards at a pace faster than would normally be seen. This type of quickened erosion can also be seen here, as the Yellowstone River eroded downwards within the land surface being pushed upwards. However, the rate of erosion is also fairly high, even for this phenomena, and that is because within this portion of the park, the Yellowstone River follows a fracture zone of the Yellowstone Caldera. Here hot water and steam rise up from deeper within the Yellowstone system as it alters the overlying rocks. 

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. Image courtesy of the NPS.

These overlying volcanic rocks, the Canyon Flow and Sulphur Creek Tuff, are what form the cap stone and canyon walls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Waterfalls form when a hard rock, a capstone, overlies a softer rock. The softer rock erodes easily away and over time the soft rock undercuts the hard rock. The hard rock eventually becomes so undercut that the hard rock breaks off, resulting in the waterfall slowly moving upstream. 

Diagram of a waterfall. Image courtesy of ALevelGeography.

Initially during an eruption 480,000 years ago the Yellowstone volcano erupted, spewing ash into the area. This as fell in thick deposits and eventually welded itself into a thick rock known as a tuff. This welded volcanic ash tuff is known as the Sulphur Creek Tuff. Over time, the Sulphur Creek Tuff had been weakened by the hydrothermal alterations previously mentioned. These hydrothermal alterations caused the Sulphur Creek Tuff to become softer and more easily eroded, forming the "soft rock" layer. This alteration by the hydrothermal fluids is also what gives the canyon walls that distinctive red, yellow, and orangey color. 

Following the eruption of the ash that formed the tuff layer was the eruption of a lava flow. This lava flow, known as the Canyon Flow, forms what is known as the "hard rock" layer, or capstone, of the waterfall. The Canyon Flow is a rhyolitic lava flow, meaning that it has a very high silica, AKA quartz, composition. The high silica composition means that the lava flow was extremely viscous, unlike the lava flows that one would see from the Hawaiian volcano which produces a low silica lava, and therefore a low viscosity lava. 



Text on the back of the bottle:
Yellowstone National Park Lodges has partnered with Rutherford Wine Company because of their commitment to sustainability. Sustainability helps to ensure long-term health of the entire ecological system by promoting and maintaining the biodiversity of plants and animals and conservation of natural resources.
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Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Drunk on Volcanology - Old Faithful Ale


The next Drunk on Geology is for the Old Faithful Ale from Grand Teton Brewing out of Victor, ID. 

To fully describe the geology of Old Faithful, and why it falls into the "Drunk on Volcanology" group, there is a bit of background geology that is needed. Old Faithful is located towards the center of Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone itself is the volcano of which Old Faithful not only sits on, but is powered by. While I am going to give a summary overview of the geology of Yellowstone here, you can find I had done a much more in-depth look at the Geology of Yellowstone National Park here.   

Yellowstone's magma plume below the surface of the Earth. Image courtesy of National Geographic.

As you can see in the image above, Yellowstone National Park is a volcano with a rather large magma chamber located below it. This magma chamber also extends significantly across the surrounding areas as well. The Yellowstone volcano is a type of volcano known as a hotspot. A hotspot is a volcano that starts off as a plume of magma that emanates from deep within the Earth, in the mantle. This plume of magma then rises through the crust and heats up the rocks on the surface. What makes a hotspot truly unique is that the plume of magma is fairly stationary as the crustal plates then move over it, creating a string of volcanoes. The Hawaiian Islands are a good example of this hotspot string of volcanoes. 

Movement of the North American plate across the Yellowstone Hotspot. Image courtesy of NPS.gov.

You can see this movement of the Yellowstone Hotspot by a trail of eruptions that move across the northwestern United States in the map above, specifically creating the topographic feature known as the Snake River Plain. And if you didn't already figure it out, the currently location of the Yellowstone Hotspot, is ... Yellowstone National Park. 



Within Yellowstone National Park there are many geological features that are tied to the Yellowstone Hotspot volcano. We are going to focus on Old Faithful here. Named in 1870, Old Faithful is what is known as a geyser. By definition, a geyser is:
A type of hot spring that intermittently erupts jets of hot water and steam, the result of ground water coming into contact with rock hot enough to create steam under conditions preventing circulation. 
Dictionary of Geological Terms 3rd Ed.   
Old Faithful erupting. View is facing south towards the Old Faithful Lodge.  

Below the surface of a geyser there are a series of cracks and fractures in the ground. These are typically referred to as the "plumbing" of the geyser. Geysers work when rain and snow percolate into the ground, creating ground water. This groundwater is heated up by the presence of a heat source, the Yellowstone magma chamber in this instance. This heated water then rises through these cracks and fissures in the ground. As the hydrothermal waters heat up and rise, they slowly dissolves the surrounding silica within the rhyolite rocks. 

Plumbing beneath Old Faithful. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Magazine.

For Old Faithful, the majority of the cracks and fractures that make up its plumbing lie within glacial sands and gravels, not within historic lava flows that cover much of the surrounding country side. The dissolved silica within the super heated waters starts to precipitate out of the hydrothermal fluids, stabilizing, and slowly constricting the cracks and fissures that make up the network. As the water is heated up, it also expands. However, since the cracks keep the heated water contained, the water is not allowed to expand, resulting in water that has become "super heated" (a phenomenon where water can surpass the boiling point but remain as water and not turn into steam). 

Eruption of Old Faithful. View is facing north, away from the Old Faithful Lodge.

As the water moves upwards through the plumbing network, eventually the water reaches near the surface where there is no more overriding pressure from the surrounding rocks and the water is allowed to expand. Since it is super heated, the expansion immediately causes the water to turn to steam. It is this sudden expansion and steam production that produces the semi-regular geyser eruptions. The regularity of the eruptions is due to the complexity of the fracture network, the ground water inflow, and how many external vents there are. The more vents connected to a system the less regular the system is likely to be. Since Old Faithful's plumbing network is not connected to any other geysers, this isolation is likely what leads to the regularity of eruptions. 

Old Faithful eruption. View from the Visitor's Center.

Within the Old Faithful system, the cracks and fissure plumbing network expands over 650 feet and holds more than 79 million gallons of water leading to ~8,000 gallons of water released per eruption shooting over 100 feet in the air. Although known for the regularity of the eruptions, the interval between eruptions is actually fairly variable, with eruptions occurring every 60 to 110 minutes. This variability is due to several factors including earthquakes altering the geyser "plumbing", seasonality of water supply, and continuous changes to the cracks and fissures due to mineral precipitation and collapse. 

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Thursday, October 17, 2024

Drunk on Geomorphology - Monument Red

 

The next Drunk on Geology is for the Castle Creek Winery Monument Red out of Moab, UT. 

Along with the previous post about the Castle Creek Winery Cabernet Sauvignon, the Monument Red is also from the Castle Creek Winery, a winery that appears to no longer be open. However, the geology on the bottle was way too good to pass up a chance to talk about. 

The bottle itself displays several artistic representations of rock structures from the nearby region. The first rock structure on the front of the bottle is from Arches National Park, also in Moab, Utah. This is the iconic Balanced Rock, towards the entrance of the park. 


This particular structure is created by more resistant rocks, the Entrada Sandstone, overly softer rocks, the Carmel Formation. The Entrada Sandstone, a Jurassic age (~150 million years old) sandstone, formed from a coastal dune environment and is the most dominant rock formation within Arches National Park. The underlying Carmel Formation is a slightly older, Jurassic age, series of mudstones, siltstones, and sandstones, formed in a tidal flat environment. Having a much higher percentage of mud in the rocks, makes these rocks much softer and therefore easier to erode than the overlying Entrada Sandstone. 


The next picture on the bottle actually takes us to Monument Valley Tribal Park, one of the Navajo Nation Tribal Parks, with this particular formation also in Utah. 


Here is a view of Monument Valley from the north, looking south. This also happens to be the spot where Forest Gump ran by. 

Image from Joseph C. Filer Fine Art Photography, Artist Point, Monument Valley. 

The above image perfectly captures the rock formations as used for the artistic rendering on the bottle. These rock formations are known as (from left to right) The Castle, Bear & Rabbit, and the Stagecoach. This view is from the south looking north from Artist Point, looking past the more well known Mittens. 

The Utah Geological Survey has a nice mark up (below) of the different rock formations within Monument Valley with the rock units outlined. The rocks associated with the formations within Monument Valley, from youngest to oldest, are the Shinarump, the Moenkopi, the De Chelly Sandstone, and the Organ Rock Shale. 

Monument Valley geology. Image courtesy of the UGS.

The Shinarump, is part of the Chinle Formation, a Late Triassic (~225 million years old) yellow-grey river-deposited sandstone and conglomerate. 

Below the Shinarump is the Moenkopi formation. The Moenkopi Formation is an Early to Middle Triassic formation (~245 million years old) that is is predominantly made up of the reddish-brown shale. The Moenkopi was deposited within an intertidal environment, with alternating sea levels producing thinly bedded layers of mud (shale) and sand (sandstone). 

Below the Shinarump is the De Chelly Sandstone. The De Chelly Sandstone is a Permian age (~200 million years old) aeolian sandstone. Aeolian means that it is formed by blowing wind, in particular sand dunes, or a desert environment. When sand dunes are frozen in time, such as when they become rocks, and eroded you can see features termed cross-bedding. These rock preserve an ancient sand sea desert, known as an erg, that used to be located here. Sandstones are also frequently extremely hard rocks that are resistant to weathering. When they weather, they fracture into regular joints. Those are the vertical line patterns of the rocks as seen in the image above. It is also what produces the shear-walled rock mesas as we know them today. 

Below the De Chelly Sandstone, is the more erodible Organ Rock Shale. You can tell it erodes much more easily by the smooth slope that forms from the edge of the overlying sandstone. If the sandstone wasn't there to protect the shale, the shale would have eroded long ago. The Organ Rock Shale is another Permian formation (~270 million years old), that mainly comprised of mudstone (shale) and siltstones. They were deposited by streams within a tidal flat environment. The Organ Rock Shale then underlies much of the surrounding landscape which is then covered over with much, much younger (Quaternary) sediment (known as alluvium) transported in by winds and water from these and other surrounding rock formation.


Text from the bottle:
Created in the heartland of the American Southwest, Monument Red is a tribute to the beauty of this landscape and all those who come to enjoy the open air, big skies, and amazing red cliffs that make the landscape to stunning. Whenever out west come visit our spectacular view of the mighty Colorado River and the Monoliths that surround us.

Elephant Butte in Arches National Park. Image courtesy of Alamy. 

The final picture on the bottle here I am uncertain of. I feel like it might be Elephant Butte in Arches National Park (pictured above), but it is different enough that I can't be certain. Elephant Butte, like Balanced Rock above, is also formed from the Entrada Sandstone.

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