It's the time of the semester where I start including silly questions in attendance polls for my GenEd class. Today's was just "How ya doin?" 65 replies of people saying lovely things. If you ask college kids a simple question, they show how kind and interesting they are. #AcademicSky

Is it Gumbo Weather yet? @ullafayette.bsky.social Gumbo weather is defined as 1st day w daily maximum temperature <70F. Last year (2024) was latest in last 120 years. We had to wait til Nov 20! We are not hoping for a repeat. Want to play along? Post your guess below!

Breaking news: NASA reports rock older than universe itself! 😅🪨🧪

In my GenEd Climate Change exams, I include an open-ended question-worth a decent chunk of points-asking students to tell me something they learned but didn't appear on the exam. Most responses are very insightful. Totally unrelated--it's striking how sloppy handwriting has become. #AcademicSky

US GEO folx: we’ve got one more webinar on the books (for now)! Come say hi, ask your burning questions, hear the latest about NSF/Earth Sciences. Thursday, Sept 18, 2p Eastern: www.nsf.gov/events/nsf-d...

Today and pi day are probably the only reasons we use the date format of d/m/y. Honestly? Worth it.

The day has come! #paddlewheelite is going all the way, people!! #MinCup25

Today in my Sed/Strat class, we did a lab activity focused on bedforms and sed structures. Here's a timelapse of oscillation ripples forming in the stream table. It's quite difficult to generate them, as it turns out! Info: 2.5 hr, 1 frame per 3 sec., GoPro12 🧪⚒️ #AcademicSky youtu.be/nu21au5SJhQ

This one is gonna be a nail-biter, folks! Personally, I'm all in for the little green alien mineral. #MinCup25

The antidote is #MinCup25.

Nate Silver's framing of #BlueSkyism is just a skill issue. It's quite a lovely place over here on my feed.

#Silver #MinCup25

Life in Virginia, USA: I'd like a #Covid booster. They're FDA approved / not CDC recommended. Pharmacies now require an Rx for the shot. Insurance will cover costs, but my telehealth provider can't issue an Rx (no option in software?). Scheduling w/ my PCP usually takes weeks/months. What fun. 🧪

There is still room in my pre-GSA-Connects field trip (co-led w/ Josh Villalobos of El Paso CC) to look at a dozen geological sites in West Texas. store.geosociety.org/products/ft2... ⚒️

Attention! If you or a loved one was diagnosed with mesothelioma, you may be entitled to financial compensation. #MinCup25 #chrysotile www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIJE...

Well folks, it's that time again! www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/ In honor of the asbestos abatement occurring in my basement tomorrow, I'm throwing my hat (and respirator) in the ring for #chrysotile

Behold, the #MinCup35 bracket! Use it to follow along, plan campaigns to support your favs, or make predictions on how voting will shake out. We start at the top left on September 1st, then alternate left and right as we work our way down.

And university lecturers just barely edged out the baristas!

Researchers say that we are mere decades from AI technology capable of finding the file I'm searching for on my forsaken PC. yes I know Macs have been doing this for centuries already

For #FossilFriday here is the 1986 FJ60 that I used to roll around in during grad school. I miss it dearly.

Poor Norway... but it does track. @realhopejahren.bsky.social

Klein & Thompson (#Abundance) point to liberal regulation as stonewalling green energy growth. Here in VA, many farmers want to lease land for solar, but (conservative) astroturf & misinfo pushed county govts to drastically limit the amount of solar acreage w/ new regs. www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1...

Last night's city council meeting in Harrisonburg discussed rezoning: a funeral home, parking lot, and a few vacant lots could become a 6-story multi-use complex. Good arguments for&against. Cool to see millennials making A+ arguments re: housing stock & climate action. Some v. smart folks spoke up.

International arrivals security at the Brussels airport was designed by - and staffed by - a bunch of toddlers who need a nap. Staff frustrated. Travelers frustrated. And not a single useful sign to communicate the rules, so bout 10% of bags get re-scanned.

Lowe's offers a DIY asbestos test kit (ship a sample to a lab, they analyze it). Because of the misleading thumbnail, the reviews are filled with people dismayed that you couldn't just use an app on your phone to ID mineralogy of construction materials. Hilarious. 🪨 www.lowes.com/pd/PRO-LAB-A...

Good morning. While on a road trip this summer, I stumbled upon a "cool S" just north of the PA turnpike near Bedford. Thank you to the Devonian Hamilton Group, Alleghenian deformation, and subsequent exhumation for constructing this homage to the 90s. 🪨 #geology #coolS #bedrock

This fall semester I will be rolling out a new Sed/Strat course at JMU. I look forward to sharing lots of cool photos and videos of our new EM3 stream table, which we'll use frequently in lab activities. Here's a sample from initial testing: 🧪⚒️

A timely metaphor for all academics anxiously touching up syllabi and reorganizing Canvas sites... #AcademicSky

📢 deeptime: an R package that facilitates highly customizable and reproducible visualizations of data over geological time intervals 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2096... Fully #openaccess in @bigearthdata1.bsky.social with insight about deeptime📦 development and code examples! #rstats #geology #paleontology

Not at all a coincidence that this type of clean-energy comms - which presents a positive case in forceful terms rather than trying to dance around the issue - is coming almost exclusively from non-US firms. The comparison tells us a lot about why the IRA failed. More below: 1/9

Whenever I try to move my own files on a PC... #AcademicSky

I'll be discussing this w/ the #BBC at 4:30pm ET:

Research at PUIs is never dull! If you have stellar UGs, it sucks that you only get to work with them for ~1-2 yrs, if you're even that lucky. Time flies. But the best part: if a student's a total stinker, they're gone in like 1 yr and the dust settles fast. Time still flies.

As a public service, people will find the original pdf files of all the U.S. National Climate Assessments, 2001-2023, publicly available at: www.patrickgonzalez.net#us_national_...

The combination of China's solar+wind growth and EV adoption really complicates the "who's to blame for climate change" chats I have frequently. Most folks' starting point is China needs to act first. Well, they are. Useful to recall the US still tops cumulative CO2 emissions. 🧪 tinyurl.com/52f3rz23

Found some cool baby snake skeletons while re-insulating the joist bays in my crawlspace this weekend. They are teeny-tiny. (the crawlspace is fully encapsulated and actually quite nice, but little pill bugs and I guess tiny snakes get in somehow)

I feel so seen right now.

Deeply weathered Early Miocene basalt from West Turkana, Kenya. I can't help but see faces in the corestones. 😵‍💫🤔 ⚒️🧪

Proteomes recovered from Miocene fossil teeth! Super cool! Most perplexing part: why the popular press insists on repeatedly talking about dinosaurs when the paper is definitively *not* about dinosaurs? Oldest samples in the study are 29 Ma (dino extinction was at 66 Ma). 🧪🪨 tinyurl.com/3en2c38t

Another fun mapping observation from West Turkana this season: basalt intrusions along an E-W fault separating Miocene and (?)Pliocene beds. No idea how young the basalt is, but likely Quaternary. Note the ground color in the distance.⚒️🧪 with @danpeppe.bsky.social #geology #mapping #fieldwork

Just got back from mapping Miocene-Pliocene sed rocks and fault blocks in West Turkana, Kenya with my great colleague @danpeppe.bsky.social. Here's the border fault separating Early Miocene strata (our focus) from the Turkana Basin. Image faces north. Losidok peak barely visible in the distance.🧪⚒️

Beautiful cumulonimbus cloud along the front line of thunderstorms in Harrisonburg, VA, yesterday. Mammatus clouds ringing a big storm cell. 🧪

Happy Friday. In 2012, I watched The Dark Knight Rises in the movie theater, next to Anthony Bourdain. Weirdly, I'd brought potato salad as a snack. He ate popcorn. We briefly chatted after the movie. He's the only celebrity I ever cared about, so that was really cool.

Early apes lived in a land of forest fires, floods, and volcanoes, according to new early Miocene fossils. Research by @mcnultylab.bsky.social, @danpeppe.bsky.social, @munyaka.bsky.social, @paleosol.bsky.social, @susycote.bsky.social, @abigail-hall.bsky.social & colleagues. eos.org/research-spo...

US Earth Scientists: We know you have questions, come get them answered directly from NSF/EAR POs! Tuesday, June 17, 2p Eastern. Register here: www.nsf.gov/events/nsf-d...

Coming up: Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer hold a press conference to share the most relatable and hilarious takes on this situation. It will be so hilarious and relatable.

It's 2003. Metallica plays the Vet in Philly. Limp Bizkit, Deftones, Linkin Park, and Mudvayne all have full sets. Min price: $55 ($96 in 2025). It's 2025. Metallica, now 22 yrs older, plays the Linc in Philly. Limp Bizkit and Ice Nine Kills open. Min price: $107 www.npr.org/sections/pla...

If NSF no longer supports my colleagues' essential work, is it complicity to submit my own proposals? When my funds dry up, my students also miss opportunities. But I very much do not want to participate in such a corrupted system. 😕🧪⚒️ #AcademicSky

I'm puzzled by the pervasive, unnecessary follow-up surveys these days. "Would you recommend this service to a friend or colleague?" Friend: Hey, haven't seen you in a while. How ya been? Me: I had a 2 minute, online chat with an insurance company rep. You should def. try it sometime. 5/5

Read the NSF FY2026 budget request to congress here: nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF... A 🧵with takeaways relevant to Geosciences... 🧪🪨 #AcademicSky