Cin-Ty Lee
@cintylee.bsky.social
geologist, critical minerals, geopolitics | Rice University | Princeton Field Guides to Flycatchers of North America | OM Systems | https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/lee-cin-ty
Long-billed Thrasher @riceuniversity.bsky.social. Epic! This bird is a fairly common resident in South Texas but to get one up in east Texas is crazy. Even more crazy is that it is with a Brown Thrasher, which shouldn’t be here in late May. May be first record of these two species mating.
every quantitative model of magma differentiation implicitly assumes that crystals form inside the magma body and reflect the evolving magma body. The evidence points to crystallization nearly all happening in cold boundary layers. If so, one's world view changes over night. Santa Claus is not real.
Our paper on the first field-documented backcross hybrid between Black-chinned and Ruby-throated Hummingbird is out in the Texas Ornithological Society Bulletin. Based on observations on the campus of @riceuniversity.bsky.social
We have a new paper. This one is about generating highly differentiated, low F melts through a series of interconnected magma chambers, each undergoing only moderate crystallization (moderate F), with the effects compounding after each successive staging. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Here is a quiz. What flycatcher is this? Photographed May 3 along the gulf coast just west of the Texas - Louisiana border.
Buff-breasted Sandpiper displaying and getting ready for breeding. These birds have been staging here for an over a week now.
What is an idea? It’s about connecting the dots. No dots, no ideas.
There are a lot of gatekeepers out there and you are destroying the future of the field with your lack of creativity. Do something useful. Step aside and allow the field to advance.
Scientists that do not like to teach can never really rise to their full potential. Teaching, even elementary classes, is the path to deeper understanding.
Two grosbeaks @riceuniversity.bsky.social a female rose breasted and an immature male blue grosbeak.
On earth day, we are running a fundraiser for Houston Audubon for conservation of birds and to bring birds and nature to people. Please come to this all day event if u r around. we could also use your help in fundraising. You can donate to our team! houstonaudubon.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/h...
I got this ecosphere 25 years ago. Algae and shrimp. The shrimp died after five years after which I took the system out of sunlight. I thought the entire system had died but today I looked at it and found this white biofilm with gas bubbles in it! Alive for twenty years! No sun.
So coming as an outsider, I’m going to ask the most basic question out there that nobody seems to be able to tell me. How did Mars become so red. Obviously oxidation but by what process? Have we figured it out?
And two more swallow-tailed kites today @riceuniversity.bsky.social. Today, raptors, swallows, swifts and waders were flying overhead, going north. Even in this urban environment, migration is going on, just high in the sky.
When resources are abundant, everyone gets along and shares.
New work challenges the idea of a “wet” Moon🌙💧 Our GCA study, with Raj and @cintylee.bsky.social, shows water-rich lunar melt inclusions form via magmatic recharge, instead of requiring a wet mantle! The Moon may still be strongly volatile-depleted. @riceeeps.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.gc...
Two yellow birds at @riceuniversity.bsky.social. A hooded and a Prothonotary Warbler. Both breed in the hardwood or bottomland forests of southeastern North America so the are typically the first to arrive.
I laid some boards down in our flood control @riceuniversity.bsky.social area hoping one day I’d find a narrow mouthed toad (really a frog) underneath. I hear them but these are tough frogs to actually see. Today, after many years, I found one!! What a beautiful but weird looking frog!
arclogite sample from the Sierra Nevada, California. These are deep arc cumulates. I got started on these rocks when I was an undergrad... they have taken me down many many paths. But above all, they are just pretty to look at.
Promachus hinei, a robber fly. These are indeed flies, but they are quite the predator. I have seen them take down dragonflies much larger than itself. But besides what they do, they are just beautiful creatures.
Spring is here. Black-and-white warbler @riceuniversity today. That plant on the left is known as “ball moss” but it’s not a moss. It’s a bromeliad, like pineapples. These epiphytes host a number of insects so the birds are often seen probing them.
Our first of season scissor-tailed flycatcher @riceuniversity.bsky.social flew over while we were hawkwatching. Spring is here. This bird was moving north very fast but we managed to get a couple of photos as it passed overhead.
Rufous-tailed jacamar from Honduras. They are in the Piciformes order, which contains puffbirds, woodpeckers, and toucans. They feed on insects by catching them in flight from exposed perched.
