Chris Rowan
@allochthonous.bsky.social
I like rocks. I think and talk about plate tectonics, geological hazards like earthquakes, the history of the Earth system, and how we silly humans can live sustainably on our amazing planet.
⚒️ Based on this thread, it might be time to update your historical geology slides. The peril of proxies: the relationship between the thing you want to measure and the thing you can measure is not always straightforward.
Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop.bsky.social · yesterdayNot remotely clear oxygen levels at any point in the Paleozoic were above modern levels. Direct samples preserved in halite do not show this at all outside of the mid-Silurian.
An LLM system has finally done something amazing; getting customers to speak fondly of ‘press 1 to…’-style automated phone systems.
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3d ago“The AI assistant, which Kinney Drugs named Burt, after its founder, was built by a third-party AI pharmaceutical company, Synerio. In the pharmacy’s terms, Kinney Drugs states that ‘Burt may not be accurate, complete or up-to-date and may be misleading or contain errors and omissions.’”
“AI-generated satellite images” are about as valid as “meat-based vegetarian dishes”. Would really like to see some specific examples of the “range of useful purposes” this feature was being used for, but there is no way any valid use could possibly offset the millions of ways it can be misused.
NPR@npr.org · 5d agoJournalists, human rights advocates and open source analysts recoiled in horror at the move: "The opportunities for abuse and disinfo are literally boundless," said one. n.pr/4c7L91d
🧪⚒️🌋 Modelling of rift valleys on Venus and comparison to known topography suggests at least three places with active or quite recently active extension at rates of 3−10 cm/yr.
Recent active rifting on Venus revealed by wide rift flank uplifts - Nature Geoscience
Comparisons between thermomechanical models and Venusian rift morphologies indicate that rifts on Venus are still, or were recently, active and may have undergone faster extension than usually assumed...
nature.com
The Odyssey was an interesting watch - definitely towards the 'based on the story by' end of adaptation. It does a fantastic job giving Odysseus' journey a real sense of weirdness and peril. Some narrative choices landed less well with me. (1/5)
Stop what you’re doing and listen to the Mr. Trash Wheel song. Now. I’m not kidding. Do it. Do it now. youtu.be/KUgAOBlEEzM?...
Mr. Trash Wheel: Hero of the Harbor OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO
YouTube video by Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore
youtu.be
⚒️ We were in New Hampshire last weekend and discovered this gem: Sabbaday Falls cuts down through a basaltic dike intruded into the surrounding granite. A highly effective visual demonstration of these rocks' relative hardness!
Learning about this makes me feel that not visiting family and friends back in the UK this summer was a mistake.
Rick Caruso’s Private Fire Crew@amandasmith.bsky.social · 2w agoOh my god you guys I love dinosaurs and I love high tea and I love drama and this has ALL THREE
Robot snakes searched for Venezuela earthquake survivors in collapsed buildings: Kudos to the team who are developing these for rushing out to try and help. Joining actual search and rescue efforts can hopefully guide further development.
Robot snakes searched for Venezuela earthquake survivors in collapsed buildings
US robotics researchers flew to Venezuela with snakebots after getting a call.
arstechnica.com
I co-sign this great summary from @dereklowe.bsky.social . The goal is to destroy academic science, and these are the reasons. And all the “gold standard” and “needs reform” and “not high risk” stuff is transparent bullshit to hide the ball on what they are doing.
Derek Lowe@dereklowe.bsky.social · 2w agoThoughts on the various Trump administration proposals to revamp US science funding - and what they all have in common:
You think they’ve plumbed the depths of poorly-conceived prequels, but then you discover they’re making ‘A Christmas Carol: Revenge of the Sith.
DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.net · 2w agoFirst poster for ‘EBENEZER’, a new film based on ‘A Christmas Carol’ starring Johnny Depp. “Before he was Scrooge, he was Ebenezer”
🧪 This is a nice analysis, inasmuch as analysis of a purely vibe-policy document is possible. The contrast with “Science, the Endless Frontier” is especially appropriate, and telling.
John Timmer@jtimmer.bsky.social · 2w agoAs promised, the results of actually reading the New Golden Age report. It is a very strange one, and it's hard to fully capture the its oddities (which is why the piece below is 2,300 words or so). But it also contains some general themes here that have been consistent throughout Trump II.
It’s impressive that autonomous AI agents is only the second most unreal idea in this sentence, behind the magic “press to get data” button. Just a huge devaluing of the process of data collection. Science is not just interpretation of data! There’s a reason many scientists want their own lab.
David Burbach 🇺🇸@dburbach.bsky.social · 2w agoNew WH science policy. This snippet is typical of nearly all its examples applied materials science, computing, and biochemistry. An AI with a cool idea about Mars or quarks can't just imagine a probe or accelerator into being www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Cool weird facts about the first Western palaeontologists. Did you know that the palaeontologist Henry De la Beche, is cited for being the first person to depict Earth as seen from space (1834)
Natalia (娜塔莉)@nataliajagielska.bsky.social · 3w agoWhat links Richard Owen and William Buckland (that's not dinosaurs) They got along with, then Prime Minister, Robert Peel, and both worked on modernising sewers and drainage systems, in Westminster (Buckland) and Lancaster (Owen).
The World Stress Map has been updated, and the increased data density reveals that maximum horizontal stress directions in plate interiors can be rotated substantially away from the direction of plate motion. blogs.egu.eu/geolog/2026/07…
Ok, now, tell me they're not implementing the presidential budget that *was not passed by Congress* with a 50% cut to NSF. Go on. grant-witness.us/funding_curv...
A 360 square km lava flow, less than 50,000 years old, on top of 20 million year old crust. No thinned lithosphere or mantle thermal anomaly. Conference abstract suggests melting of a subducted fragment of oceanic crust, but the question is how it got there…
Science Magazine@science.org · 2w agoNamed the Balerion Lava Field after the gargantuan black dragon from the TV series Game of Thrones, this glassy swath of lava discovered on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean doesn’t fit any existing explanation for how volcanoes form. https://scim.ag/4hj3tbc
My latest for @science.org: Scientists have discovered a new record-breaking ancient meteorite from Mars, formed more than 4.1 billion years ago. Dubbed Teghaza 001, it provides an unprecedented view of the martian crust from this time, suggesting it was much more complex than once thought.
Oldest known Mars rock offers glimpse of planet’s watery youth
Ancient Teghaza meteorite hints at granitelike crust and shows Mars was already losing its water 4.1 billion years ago
science.org
link.springer.com/article/10.1... It’s out! We’ve written a paper about volcanoes 🌋 in the movies 🎥! As well as the usual lava-based faux pas we’ve asked how well they do at recreating eruptive cycles, depicting human responses and what volcanologists can learn from compelling storytelling!
Mayhem, magic and dangerous myths? Volcanoes on the big screen - Bulletin of Volcanology
We examine the extent to which movies that prominently feature volcanoes and volcanic eruptions reflect the reality of eruptions and eruptive crises. To do this, we develop an interdisciplinary method...
link.springer.com
Happy birthday to brilliant trailblazing US #geologist & prof Florence Bascom (1862-1945) 👩🏼🔬🐡🧪⚒️ #histsci who championed women’s education, & used polarizing microscopes for detailed petrographic analysis to show that rocks previously identified as sedimentary were in fact metamorphosed volcanic 🧵
⚒️ Talk about fortuitous timing! 2 months after sensors were installed on a section of ridge in the S Indian Ocean, it captured a spreading event. Over 16 days, it recorded quakes, subsidence & extension associated with dike injection; a post-event survey found ~150 million cubic m of new lava flows.
Anatomy of a seafloor spreading event captured by in situ seismogeodesy - Nature
By combining hydroacoustic, direct-path ranging and bottom-pressure measurements, in situ observations of a rifting event at a segment of the Southeast Indian Ridge are reported, providing insight int...
nature.com
🤯 Nitrogen levels in *granites* reveal strong burial of organic matter in the proterozoic eon, in line with oxygen rise. The nitrogen in the granites originated from organic matter in the sediments that melted to form the granites. ⚒️🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Nitrogen in strongly peraluminous granites reveals a significant increase in biomass burial and O2 production prior to the Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event
Strongly Peraluminous Granites (SPGs) are mostly formed by the partial melting of Al-rich sedimentary rocks and can reflect the chemical properties of…
sciencedirect.com
"Coffee is critically threatened by climate change": efforts to counteract this include trying to make the two main crop species more heat and drought resistant and testing production from other coffee species (not sure about the one that smells of marmite).
Coffee is under threat: how scientists are fighting to save it from extinction
Coffee plants are critically endangered by climate change. Researchers are finding solutions to keep scientists supplied with their favourite discovery fuel.
nature.com
This seems like a prime opportunity for the forces of right and for the LOLs to form a winning coalition. Unfortunately, there is a reason that Farage, after several attempts elsewhere, managed to get elected in Clacton.
Jessica Elgot@jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 4w agoNEW - Greens won’t stand in Clacton. So it is Nigel Farage versus Count Binface.
Egypt deserve to win just for the ‘fuck you VAR’ goal.
⚒️ Given the heretical undertones of “no vestige of a beginning’ when it was written, appropriate that the band is called Bad Religion.
John Tweedie@johntweedie.bsky.social · 4w agoWho knew that the band Bad Religion quoted James Hutton in their song No Control? “no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end”
13 years ago today: four geobloggers atop Dee Wright Volcano Observatory, McKenzie Pass, Oregon. Left to right, Me, Anne Jefferson, Chris Rowan, and Dana Hunter, with North and Middle Sisters behind us. ⚒️
If nothing else, the Balogun red card saga supports twin axioms that (i) Trump cannot abide a story that does not centre him; and (ii) by inserting himself he makes everything ten times more tawdry (which somehow applies even when FIFA is already involved).
