Nick Barber 🌋
@volcannick.bsky.social
Asst Professor, geoscientist, volcanophile magma, metals, and minerals 🌋🪨🛰️Philadelphian 🦅, father, husband. he/him. www.volcannick.com Opinions my own
In Nevada, there is a company claiming to have the the largest tungsten deposit in the US and they want NASA to hand over land they use to calibrate satellites for “national security” so they can mine it. www.mining.com/largest-us-t...
Largest US tungsten discovery hits NASA roadblock
A Financial Times report shows that 3 Proton Lithium’s Nevada discovery could reshape US supply if it can overcome NASA land restrictions
mining.com
Absolutely insane footage of rock avalanches currently sweeping across the entire south face of the Matterhorn, as filmed from Cervinia! 🔥😱 📽️ Via @meteovalledosta
The valid directions for time to flow are bottom-to-top and left-to-right. Time does not descend from the heavens, nor (at least in left-to-right scripts) does it flow from right to left like some geochemists seem to think.
Did everyone see @janinekrippner.bsky.social explaining volcanoes for Encylopedia Britannica? www.britannica.com/video/what-a...
Volcanologist Janine Krippner Explains the Science Behind Volcanoes and Lava Flow | Britannica
Volcanologist Janine Krippner dives into the details.
britannica.com
20. Hard Again by Muddy Waters. With the right backing band, he could still absolutely roar in his 60s.
Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy (Hard Again)
YouTube video by firedrich
youtube.com
Really interesting fracture morphology to this zircon (from an Archean shear zone in s. Ontario's Superior Craton). It looks positively dilated in the brittle realm: onion skin style sheeting along growth bands and then further blown apart along those new intracrystal mechanical discontinuities. ⚒️
Still can’t read it, but from a couple of other posts I can see that the Trump Admin basically said they we will build the Ambler Road for them to build this mine and get it done quickly if you give us equity in you company.
Elizabeth V@geolizzy.bsky.social · yesterdaySaw this on LinkedIn but can’t read it. I did see the comments people made about it though 😬 www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Detail of the boulder breccia (basal layer of Cambrian) transitioning into overlying Sauk Sea sandstone at East Bluff, Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin. ⚒️
Callan Bentley@callanbentley.bsky.social · 3d agoA BILLION YEARS OF MISSING TIME The Great Unconformity at East Bluff, Devil's Lake, Wisconsin: 1.63 Ga Baraboo Quartzite overlain by a boulder breccia at the base of the sandstones of the Cambrian Sauk Sea (600-505 Ma). ⚒️
A BILLION YEARS OF MISSING TIME The Great Unconformity at East Bluff, Devil's Lake, Wisconsin: 1.63 Ga Baraboo Quartzite overlain by a boulder breccia at the base of the sandstones of the Cambrian Sauk Sea (600-505 Ma). ⚒️
One thing I don’t understand is this framing about US vs China winning the “AI race.” What exactly is the goal we are striving towards? What would the finish line look like for AI model development? The moon race had a clear goal. I don’t think LLMs are the same! www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/t...
White House Whipsaws Silicon Valley (and Itself) Over A.I. Rules (Gift Article)
The Trump administration has struggled over how to approach “open source” models, which are freely available to download and favored by Chinese companies.
nytimes.com
please keep the phillies in your thoughts and prayers, they’ve been made to play a baseball game again 💔
Pro-wrestling executive Linda McMahon issued a letter today (in her role as US Secretary of Education) demanding that universities justify their existence and explain policies to the Trump administration by the end of 2026. Not sure what the endgame is, but it sure feels like a trap.
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon Issues National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards
Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon issued a national call to action to university presidents and governing boards, urging them to reaffirm higher education’s foundational commitments to ...
ed.gov
On a related note, Kobold Minerals (backed by Bezos and Gates) made a deal to digitize all the geological data from DRC then put it into their AI to use for exploration and is also starting a lithium project in Manono www.mining.com/kobold-signs...
KoBold signs Congo deal to boost US mineral supply
Congo and Kobold Metals agree on exploration tie‑up to boost critical‑minerals output.
mining.com
And back in April, we saw that they were creating a paramilitary guard with money from the US and UAE apnews.com/article/cong...
Congo creates a paramilitary mining guard backed by US and UAE funding
Congo has announced the creation of a paramilitary guard to secure its mining operations, backed by U.S. and Emirati investments.
apnews.com
It's that time of year again - the EarthScope ISCE+ course in InSAR processing and analysis is underway! Here (on his short course debut) is Francisco Delgado leading us through a first modeling exercise using InSAR displacements over Okmok Volcano!
...I approach peer review from the perspective of "what would make this manuscript more convincing and clearer?" Like, the only way I'd be negative (and even not "brutal") would be if a revised manuscript failed to do that. I'm not alone in doing that going by the reviews I get back on my stuff.
Anjali Dayal@anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 4d agoI don’t really want to get into this with people who feel this way, but i don’t think this is a good thing! We don’t need to behave this way! It’s not healthy to approach academic discourse as an exercise in harshness!
this issue was just in front of the Supreme Court, and the case was the state of West Virginia against a middle school girl. which side sounds braver to you?
For people suggesting AP Geology as a solution to promoting geology in high schools, you do know that means there's a very high chance we kill our university intro courses and run face more cuts from admins like a number of the humanities are dealing with, yes?
Absolutely nuts: Google Earth now has a feature that lets you convincingly fabricate satellite imagery www.digitaldigging.org/p/how-to-pla...
This is what happens when you fire everyone who knows how to use GIS and replace them with Chat GPT.
PBS News@pbsnews.org · 6d agoThe State Department said it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.
Toddler has unfortunately picked up the curse “Jesus Christ,” in moments of big feelings. In trying to train him out of, my wife has asked he say “cheese and crackers,” instead. Now when he drops something I’ll hear him yell JESUS CRACKERS.
This is a good thread on a good paper, but I want to point out that pretty much *all* studies of the Panama-South America suture require it to have been in place by ~12-13 million years ago, and most would have that bit of the isthmus as above water then, too.
Z. Jack Tseng@tsengzj.bsky.social · 6d agoAlthough the main GABI pulses started around the same time as the appearance of a persistent Panamanian land bridge, there has been conflicting findings as to the tempo and mode of pre-GABI land corridors. Some studies propose a Middle Miocene closure of the Central American Seaway (3/11)
A first for thin section Thursday: ❤️ shaped void in coral skeleton found while using Raman 😊 #thinsectionthursday
Trying to catch up on fun/informative non-work related reading during sabattical. Hopefully this will recharge my mental batteries! July has been fun so far - these are the books I’ve made it through.
Solidarity is needed. The attacks on vaccines and public health are coming for the rest of us eventually, just as they came for asbestos science, smoking science, and climate science before vaccines. Fixing democracy requires fighting against the attacks on science. And the converse. /end
