Tom Gernon
@gernon.bsky.social
Interdisciplinary Earth Scientist; Professor at University of Southampton, UK thomasgernon.co.uk He/him
Glad to share our new study at @natcomms.nature.com which resulted from several workshops on the early warning signs of mass extinctions and coordination of macroevolutionary vulnerability and the states of carbon cycle and temperatures. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio
Firefighters in Oregon, Spain, and now France (?!) are battling wildfires big enough to generate pyrocumulonimbus clouds. These fire storms are treacherous on the ground. But scientists are concerned about the *planetary* consequences of injecting so much smoke into the upper atmosphere...🌍🔥🧵
There's gold in them thar......subducted seamounts?? This is cool from @gernon.bsky.social etal. www.science.org/doi/full/10....
Seamount subduction drives bonanza-grade gold mineralization
A “start button” for the formation of giant gold deposits on Earth is the subduction of plume-related seamounts.
science.org
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
I'm getting really worried about the EGU executive office. They've not emailed for 21 mins 🥺
The formation of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet has stumped scientists. Could a tectonic event that took place tens of millions of years prior offer an explanation? eos.org/articles/the...
The Breakup of Gondwana Over 100 Million Years Ago May Be Why Antarctica Has Ice Today - Eos
A rift event set off a domino effect of geologic processes that created conditions ripe for Antarctica’s glaciation, a new study suggests.
eos.org
My latest for @science.org: The rifting of Gondwana likely led, some *100 million* years later, to the formation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. (Yes, CO2 decline was also part of it.) The past isn't even past. A fascinating expansion of @gernon.bsky.social's mantle waves work.
How an ancient continental breakup helped spawn the Antarctic Ice Sheet
Mantle waves and tectonic stretching lofted polar mountains into a deep freeze
science.org
How Antarctica got it's ice sheets -- this week on the @science.org podcast w/ @meagancantwell.bsky.social and Thomas Gernon listen here: www.science.org/content/podc...
Really nice to read this in-depth feature in @science.org on our Science paper on East Antarctic Ice Sheet formation. A huge thanks to @voosen.me for your continued interest in and coverage of the mantle waves story! www.science.org/content/arti...
How an ancient continental breakup helped spawn the Antarctic Ice Sheet
Mantle waves and tectonic stretching lofted polar mountains into a deep freeze
science.org
Wir haben natürlich auch eine deutsche Version der Antwort auf die Frage, warum die Antarktis rund 30 Mio Jahre eher vereiste als die Arktis 👇🏻 www.gfz.de/presse/meldu...
Warum wuchs der antarktische Eisschild viele Millionen Jahre früher als das Eis in der Arktis?
Die durch Gesteins-Tropfen an der Unterseite der antarktischen Platte verursachte Kontinentalhebung hob die Landmasse über einen Kipppunkt hinaus, ab dem Eis wachsen und bestehen bleiben konnte.
gfz.de
GFZ Helmholtz-Zentrum für Geoforschung@gfz.bsky.social · last mo.Yes. Highly recommended reading! Some of our colleagues were involved in the study, for instance @sasbrune.bsky.social If you want to read our press release (based on the one of University of Southampton), click the link 👇🏻 www.gfz.de/en/press/new...
Our new study on how uplifting terrain in Antarctica helped provoke glaciation is out @science.org. Delighted to see this work through after many years. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @sasbrune.bsky.social @gfz.bsky.social @derekkeir.bsky.social @polarguy.bsky.social @unisouthampton.bsky.social
Continental breakup–driven uplift instigated East Antarctic Ice Sheet formation
Why Antarctica became glaciated ∼34 million years ago (Ma) remains debated, as relatively warm climates and sea temperatures appear inconsistent with ice sheet formation. Although a critical decline i...
science.org
Yes. Highly recommended reading! Some of our colleagues were involved in the study, for instance @sasbrune.bsky.social If you want to read our press release (based on the one of University of Southampton), click the link 👇🏻 www.gfz.de/en/press/new...
Why did the Antarctic ice sheet grow many million years earlier than the Arctic ice?
Continental uplift, caused by drips at the underside of the Antarctic plate, elevated the landmass above a tipping point where ice could grow and remain.
gfz.de
Aaron Putnam@aaronputnam.bsky.social · last mo.Fascinating piece in The Conversation by @gernon.bsky.social discussing recent work by him and his colleagues investigating how continental breakup and consequent mantle dynamics may have primed the topography of Antarctica for glaciation ~34 million years ago. theconversation.com/why-antarcti...
Fascinating piece in The Conversation by @gernon.bsky.social discussing recent work by him and his colleagues investigating how continental breakup and consequent mantle dynamics may have primed the topography of Antarctica for glaciation ~34 million years ago. theconversation.com/why-antarcti...
Why Antarctica froze millions of years before the Arctic – new research
New solutions to two interlinked mysteries reveal how and why the Antarctic’s enormous ice sheet formed.
theconversation.com
@gernon.bsky.social has a good read in www.americanscientist.org/article/mant... @americanscientist.org . Marvelous figures!
americanscientist.org
💯 from Dave Eggers: "can think of nothing worse than “the idea of us willingly... saying ‘I think my voice would be better expressed by an unthinking machine who has plagiarised all of the world’s authors and has come up with this terrible soup of bad writing.’" www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
Dave Eggers: ‘Once you have a machine think and write for you, you’re cooked as a species’
As his new novel is published, the US author talks about nurturing the next generation of creatives, debating Sam Altman – and why he writes on a boat in San Francisco Bay
theguardian.com
If you want to *really* get into the question of whether climate change is worsening El Niño, @science.org had a feature on it in 2024. (It also features the first time I ever had to evacuate for a cyclone.)
On a remote Pacific island, clues to El Niño’s future are preserved in ancient reefs
Researchers exhume fossilized corals to predict the fate of a key climate pacemaker in a warmer world
science.org
⚒️ Article: The burial of terrestrially-derived organic carbon in coastal marine sediments greatly increased during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum @climategordon.bsky.social @sotonoceanearth.bsky.social @unisouthampton.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Enhanced marine burial of terrestrial organic carbon through the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum - Nature Geoscience
The burial of terrestrially derived organic carbon in coastal marine sediments greatly increased during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, probably helping to draw down a large portion of carbon r...
nature.com
"Not even Hitler or Mussolini attacked the Pope so directly and publicly" www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Pope says he has 'no fear' of Trump after scathing criticism
The US president accuses Leo of being
bbc.co.uk
Protecting civilians is a sign of strength – and an American ideal | Ted Widmer
Protecting civilians is a sign of strength – and an American ideal | Ted Widmer
The US was founded on a pledge to limit the damages of war, even if it has often failed to uphold its commitment
theguardian.com
RAPID ACTION ALERT: WHITE HOUSE TONIGHT Emergency protest at the White House at 7 PM. This morning, Trump posted on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” He has set an 8 PM deadline for Iran to reopen the
NOW: B52 bombers are literally in the air on their way to Iran and hundreds of thousands of Iranians are in the streets waving flags and surrounding bridges & power plants. Difficult to imagine this has any precedent in modern warfare. (🎥 Al Jazeera)
President Trump is threatening war crimes of horrific proportions against civilians. It’s deranged. This madness must stop.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4mo agoTrump: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will … We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end”
Researchers say the ancient breakup of tectonic plates creates churning waves in Earth’s mantle that tumble in slow motion under the continents for tens of millions of years, sculpting topography deep within continental interiors. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4s8GTEs #ScienceMagArchives
Our planet’s average temperature plummeted between 717 and 658 million years ago, causing a worldwide ice age dubbed Snowball Earth. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/snowball-earth-dynamic-open-seas
Snowball Earth might have had a dynamic climate and open seas
Sediments from Scotland hint that ocean-atmosphere interactions continued more than 600 million years ago despite widespread ice.
sciencenews.org
"Snowball Earth might have had a dynamic climate and open seas": a nice article about our new study led by the amazing @cgrifgeo.bsky.social, just published in @scinews.bsky.social www.sciencenews.org/article/snow... @unisouthampton.bsky.social
Snowball Earth might have had a dynamic climate and open seas
Sediments from Scotland hint that ocean-atmosphere interactions continued more than 600 million years ago despite widespread ice.
sciencenews.org
Slightly late to the party, but here's a link to access our new open access paper reporting "Interannual to multidecadal climate oscillations occurred during Cryogenian glaciation" led by the amazing @cgrifgeo.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Interannual to multidecadal climate oscillations occurred during Cryogenian glaciation
During the two Cryogenian snowball Earth glaciations, the Sturtian (ca. 717–658 Ma) and Marinoan (ca. 639–635 Ma), ice persisted in the tropics for mi…
sciencedirect.com
Hundreds of millions of years ago our planet was frozen, in a state called Snowball Earth. Researchers here at Southampton have examined how the climate would have fluctuated. Read more: https://tr.pulse.ly/si1ggtin1u @gernon.bsky.social | @cgrifgeo.bsky.social | @sotonoceanearth.bsky.social
