Got sent photos of a #fossil tooth a local kid found at around 8500 ft elevation in southern Utah. Could use ID help. My first thought was mastodon or something similar because of the cusps, but juvenile due to the small size? #geology #paleontology
Grant’s Hammer
@shimer.bsky.social
He/Him #Geology geologist somewhere in Utah. Will occasionally post dogs, rocks, and various other nature things, but mostly here to see what else is going on and learn cool new things/keep up with the horrors of authoritarian destruction.
As *tech*, AI isn't exceptional. It's not exceptionally wicked. It's not exceptionally good. Take away the accompanying, galactic-scale stock-swindle, and we'd call AI's apps "plug-ins" and we'd use them and abuse them in the same way that we've used every other technology: www.normaltech.ai 1/
Some #geology and general nature pics from a trip through northern CA and southern OR. First up, coastal rocks.
One thing I noticed leaving Utah/Nevada for a while is the complete absence of side by sides and spent shell casings on public lands at the places I’ve been. And I’m not just in national parks! That said, the parks sure make it seem like ecosystems are a lot healthier without all the damn cows.
Not sure why people haven’t recognized that McConnell was simply entering estivation due to the summer heat. It’s very dangerous to interrupt that, especially if you disturb the mucous cocoon.
Lawmakers in the U.S. represent more people than in almost any other country. Each of the 435 voting members of the U.S. House of Representatives represents about 802,000 people. The median representation ratio among 106 democracies was about 31,000 people per lawmaker. #USDemocracy
The 2026 United States of Science Challenge starts NOW! Each bubble represents classrooms we’ve matched with scientists this year. This a competition to fill bubbles with $10 donations to support @skypeascientist.bsky.social The first region to fill all bubbles wins. 👇🏻 givebutter.com/USS2026
United States of Science 2026
By Skype a Scientist
givebutter.com
It appears as though Recreation.gov has non-refundable reservation fees that I don’t remember. I assume those fees are a relatively new grift for the contractor on top of the already ridiculous nightly campsite fees that price people out of National Forest campgrounds.
Recreation.gov - Camping, Cabins, RVs, Permits, Passes & More
We're here to help you dream up your next trip, figure out the details, and reserve experiences at over 3,600 facilities and 103,000 individual sites across the country.
recreation.gov
Photos from yesterday afternoon’s smoke in Cedar City around 6:30 pm. It lifted by late evening and it’s relatively clear this morning. It smelled surprisingly pleasant compared to other wildfire smoke I’ve experienced. Maybe the mix of burning juniper, piñon, and sage is a nice potpourri?
I usually avoid driving around in this formerly small town on a Friday afternoon but I ventured out at 1:30 pm today and good gravy, nonsense and traffic jams all around. All states have bad drivers but the three piece of UT, CA, and NV is a powerfully bad combo.
As a fairly impartial NBA finals watcher, I’m not feeling Wemby activating SGA mode and the officials obliging. The Spurs are nailing shots, so it’s not all ref ball, but the refs have been pretty unbalanced.
I hear “Uno, dos, tres, catorce!” and I’m instantly back in the Marshfield, Wisconsin Target in 2004. Stocked a lot of CDs that winter, though they were probably already declining with the spread of iPods. The Shinedown cover of Skynyrd’s Simple Man does the same thing.
Rodger Sherman@rodger.bsky.social · 2mo agoevery person who has ever worked retail for even a week has at least one song they can never hear again without being involuntarily transported back to the store
Saw a few #Rivian R2 out in the wild today (a hotel parking lot in Cedar City as I drove past after a trail run). Special Illinois plates, so looked like test drives. One of the SUVs had the colorful dazzle livery. They look good. Somewhere between a Forester and 4Runner in external dimensions.
A few critical points: 1) Program officers will be replaced by political appointees in the grantmaking process. The role of peer review—originally introduced into US funding agencies for large part to prevent political interference with scientific research—is strongly diminished.
Some images from today’s fieldwork in the Chinle Formation (permitted work in Red Cliffs reserve, Washington County, Utah. First up: in situ petrified wood logs! Metal staff is 1.6 m long
The Chinle Formation is always good for fairly strange deposits. I’ve never seen fracture fills in this abundance before. It’s on the limb of an anticline that is also sliced up by much more recent normal faults. Some of them are mildly carbonate based, other gypsum, but most some silicate mixture.
Why aren’t we calling data centers surveillance centers? Tracking people online and now in public spaces with cameras is a big part of the data they’re aggregating and processing, malicious or not.
This should make for an interesting first day of field camp tomorrow.
Thousands of pieces of flint napping debris near a creek south of Mt Dutton. Milky white agate(?), maybe from the contact between the Claron Formation and overlying volcanics. Not sure. Define human modification, with impact bulbs, flake scars, facets, etc. didn’t see finished tools or pottery.
Paunsaugunt plateau wildflowers. I’m not great at flower ID and the pictures are a bit fuzzy because of the breeze.
Interesting scat in a forest service road near Bryce Canyon NP. I just listened to the megafelinology episode from @ologies.bsky.social and @biologistimogene.bsky.social on the way out here and wonder… It looks to be fairly old. Tire tracks have wiped out any prints but this is between the ruts.
I'm hiring a postdoc to lead sedimentary aDNA reconstructions of alpine plant biodiversity as part of a broader project exploring the mechanisms of alpine plant resilience. Come join a collaborative team working in beautiful places! Bonus: postdocs at UMaine are unionized!
Postdoctoral Research Associate
The University of Maine is a community of more than 11,900 undergraduate and graduate students, and 2,500 employees located on the Orono campus, the regional campus in Machias, and throughout the stat...
fa-ewca-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com
In his monthly message in the city newsletter the mayor of this small Utah town wrote about mutual aid and community. I hadn’t seen that language used in a cultural space like this before. Given that the rapid growth and influx of white flight MAGA types from other states, this is a welcome change…
I keep hearing “national security” and the “ai war with China” as justification for data centers and things like mining just outside of the boundary waters, but none of these folks care to explain how any of that is true and it sure seems like a scam. utahnewsdispatch.com/2026/05/01/b...
Massive Box Elder County data center could increase Utah’s carbon emissions by 50% • Utah News Dispatch
Energy plant of proposed Box Elder County data center could increase Utah's carbon emissions by 50%, according to an expert's estimate.
utahnewsdispatch.com