Upstate NY, I'm doing 2 events this weekend: I'll be talking ancient mass extinctions at the delightful Gilboa Museum Saturday at 1 (where first fossil forests in Earth history were discovered!) and all things carbon on Sunday at 4 at Left Bank Ciders in Catskill, NY with @blytheterrell.bsky.social!

Honestly didn't know the scale went this high

Quebec must be the world capital of google maps-able craters, from the weirdly unrelated Ordovician and Permian Clearwater lakes craters, to the truly massive Triassic Manicuoagan crater

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3w ago

In 2024, someone identified what looked to be an impact crater located about 100 km north of Magpie, Quebec, as seen in this image from Google Earth. Researchers recently confirmed it was in fact a 390-million-year-old meteor crater — never before identified.

This guy is now in charge of the US National Climate Assessment

Remember the global climate goal of no hotter than 1.5°C? Climate change plus a very powerful El Niño could lead to the first month with a global average temperature above 2°C early next year.

Celebrating America's 250 millionth anniversary of the early Triassic Smithian-Spathian extinction

They read about the Late Devonian mass extinction and are starting to get freaked out by the runaway eutrophication

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · last mo.

Just when you think it can’t get more weird….. Fencing going up around Reflecting Pool

We lost a real one this week. Nice obit for "true villain" Exxon CEO Lee Raymond by @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social. I'll always remember him for his inspiring words: “I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.” RIP heatmap.news/daily/lee-ra...

Lee Raymond, 311 ppm – 421 ppm

The former ExxonMobil CEO left his legacy both on the Earth and in the sky.

heatmap.news

The NSF just eliminated geoscience postdocs, is trying to destroy NCAR, and is now dismantling the world's best array of ocean observatories for no reason, just uncomprehending childlike spite towards anyone who wants to learn anything about this planet www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/c...

Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System

nytimes.com

for what it's worth, I'm going down with the ship of Reading Books and Writing My Own Stuff

"Interestingly, they found that, particularly for Greenland, that none of the models had melt rates as high as observed *even with* RCP 8.5 forcing"

Ryan Katz-Rosene, PhD@ryankatzrosene.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Within, Gavin points out that the new High scenario "gets to 8.5 W/m2 only about 20 years after RCP85"

Endless thanks to @ericnyquist.bsky.social for catching people's eyes with his beautiful cover art!

Anne-Marie Bonneau@zerowastechef.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This new book caught my eye on display at the library. I had no idea the story of C02 would be a gripping masterpiece. The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything, by @peterbrannen.bsky.social

Had a similar experience talking to a grad student recently who was studying taphonomic bias in the fossil record and was advised against using the word "bias" for fear of tripping the DEI censors. Things are stupider than you can imagine

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH@gavinyamey.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I have a biologist friend who told me—& I found this hard to believe—that Bhattacharya’s ban on using “DEI words” in NIH grant applications isn’t limited to the NIH. She says can’t risk putting the word “diversity” in her NSF applications. Like, you can’t study biological diversity cuz it’s “woke” 🤯

On NSF’s postdoc page, the biology and earth science fields have been completely eliminated; the only remaining fellowships are in math, astronomy, engineering, and “entrepreneurship.” Weird choice not to support research on the life support system for 8 billion people. www.nsf.gov/funding/post...

If politicians want to water down their language about climate change because they think it's more politically salable that's fine, but it remains true that we're deranging the planet at a pace that has virtually no analog in the fossil record, even for a planet with a very volatile climate history

For your weekend asmr needs: me, speaking about carbon dioxide and the carbon cycle, at length, again www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_j...

The Most Consequential Story in Earth's History - Peter Brannen | #72

YouTube video by Jesse Damiani

youtube.com

Interesting move being the governor of Louisiana and deciding to drown New Orleans to "save" $3 billion. (LECZ=low-elevation coastal zone) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Started reading THE STORY OF CO2 IS THE STORY OF EVERYTHING by Peter Brannen (recommended on a great book list by @ferrisjabr.bsky.social), and it is PHENOMENAL. I'm only about 20 pages in and my brain is already swirling with thoughts and cool new facts.

Fantastic review of my new book Lost Worlds in the Wall Street Journal: "Throughout, Mr. Wyman evokes the sights, sounds and smells of entire lifeways that have disappeared." www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘Lost Worlds’ Review: Life Before Letters

For thousands of years before the earliest written records exist, human communities emerged and formed traditions. Most have left little trace behind.

wsj.com

You're hearing it more and more

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.@arctomet.bsky.social · 3mo ago

An often-unrecognized factor in pO2 is that primary driver isn't directly from net primary productivity. It is really driven by the rate of sequestration of reduced carbon. (Peter Brannen's recent "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything" and refs within discusses this in detail.)

Sorry if this news screws anything up for anyone, but it turns out that rivers during the Cambrian period didn't wind as much as they do today pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulle...

Happy publication to my friend @stevebrusatte.bsky.social, who wrote a fantastic and sweeping evolutionary history of birds! A great gift for the theropod-head in your life

Pictured: my butt cheeks spanning 1.5 billion years across The Great Unconformity

The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything by @peterbrannen.bsky.social The Great Quake by Henry Fountain The Old Ways by @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social Proto by Laura Spinney Savage Landscape by Cal Flyn (def some recency bias going on, sue me)

Time to learn more about what happens when hegemonic decline, sectarian strife, and millenarian fervor on all sides lead to regional war, and then to regional war spiraling out of control.

This weekend news broke that President Trump has fired members of the National Science Board (NSB), which oversees the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). This independent governing body has advised U.S. presidents and Congress on scientific policies for more than 75 years.

Hear science journalist Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social discuss his book 'The story of CO2 is the story of everything: How carbon dioxide made our world' 🗓️ Tuesday April 28th 11am Mountain 📍 CU Boulder East Campus, SEEC S228 and Zoom calendar.colorado.edu/event/peter-...

The eloquent and deeply knowledgeable @peterbrannen.bsky.social is without question one of our best contemporary writers on Earth history & science. If you haven't read his eye-opening debut on mass extinctions, The Ends of the World, and his magisterial, epic follow up, you should remedy that ASAP.

'The NSF has only committed $500 million of the $8 billion it was appropriated for the fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1. The NSF will lose the billions of remaining funding if it does not spend it by Sept. 30.' thehill.com/homenews/adm...

National Science Foundation’s future in limbo as Trump eyes cuts

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) future is in limbo as President Trump pushes for more budget cuts and his nominee to helm the research agency awaits Senate confirmation.  Since Trump’s retu…

thehill.com

Tracked down a couple recent Scientific Americans in which I have a weird feature on how far into the future you could possibly send a time capsule, as well as a cool spread on my new-ish book (complete with actual photograph of me holding a giant CO2 molecule) pls read at your convenience thx