Carbon tax is back, baby!

Kick off your morning with a very nice write up in Mongabay about our recent Lac Mai paper. @johansix.bsky.social @jordonhemingway.bsky.social @saegroupethz.bsky.social

Two major humic lakes in the Congo Basin are emitting ancient carbon from nearby peatlands into the atmosphere, reports a study in Nature Geoscience. These findings challenge the prevailing understanding that CO2 emissions from pristine humic lakes are derived from modern, rapidly cycling carbon. 🌍🧪

Excited to share some new #clumped #isotope bond reordering results just published in EPSL and led by Nico Kueter & Nathan Looser @eth-eaps.bsky.social. Come for the high-precisino reordering kinetics, stay for the beautiful FTIR maps! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Reminder, three more days to apply for our *two* fully funded PhD positions on tropical African biogeochemistry! @eth-eaps.bsky.social @usyseth.bsky.social @draketw.bsky.social @johansix.bsky.social

Very happy to see our @agu.org @jgrbiogeo.bsky.social paper on greenhouse gas emissions from Congo lakes published! Following up from @draketw.bsky.social's companion paper last week. With @johansix.bsky.social et al. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

A big reason we have an oxygenated atmosphere is because there is a lot more pyrite burial than pyrite oxidation (which wasn't always the case). 🧪⚒️ Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Two major humic lakes in the Congo Basin are emitting ancient carbon from nearby peatlands into the atmosphere, reports a study in Nature Geoscience. These findings challenge the prevailing understanding that CO2 emissions from pristine humic lakes are derived from modern, rapidly cycling carbon. 🌍🧪

In case our short communications paper was too long 😆, you can now read Research Briefing about our recent study showing aged carbon outgassing from Congo lakes! rdcu.be/e6W6l @jordonhemingway.bsky.social @johansix.bsky.social @usyseth.bsky.social @eth-eaps.bsky.social @natgeosci.nature.com

Is enhanced rock weathering ready as a climate mitigation strategy? Our latest work explores key uncertainties — from feedstock availability and the land–ocean continuum to plant–soil interactions and socioeconomic impacts. Now published in our perspective paper: ➡️ doi.org/10.1038/s430...

🚜🌍 Accelerated rock weathering shows promise for long term CO₂ removal — but major uncertainties remain. #ClimateScience #CarbonRemoval #ERW With @thuenen.de and @ethz.ch @mschiedung.bsky.social @eth-eaps.bsky.social usys.ethz.ch/en/news-even...

A research team, led by @johansix.bsky.social and @jordonhemingway.bsky.social, has discovered that large blackwater lakes in the peatlands of the central Congo Basin are releasing ancient carbon. In the future, these lakes could become a significant sources of methane and impact the global climate.

And with a nice write-up by @ethz.ch news: usys.ethz.ch/en/news-even...

🚨 Paper alert! 🚨 Happy to see this review out in @natureportfolio.nature.com Reviews Earth & Environ! We go through looming uncertainties related to wide-scale application of ERW. It will be a rocky path! @mschiedung.bsky.social @profbobhilton.bsky.social @eth-eaps.bsky.social @usyseth.bsky.social

And with a nice write-up by @ethz.ch news: ethz.ch/en/news-and-... @eth-eaps.bsky.social @usyseth.bsky.social

Here is what we found: -Nearly 40% of the inorganic carbon in Lakes Mai Ndombe and Tumba comes from ancient peat. -Microbes likely respire this old carbon deep underground, sending it to the lakes to vent like a "chimney" -It's yet unknown what this means in terms of Congo's peat stability

New paper alert! 🚨 Our new study shows that massive lakes in the Congo Basin are outgassing millennial-aged carbon. This challenges the idea that lake CO₂ only comes from modern vegetation. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thread below! 🧵👇

USA: "Man, we're sooooo good at making ourselves a nationalist backwater global pariah that nobody wants to visit or move to or do business with or interact with. We're the best at it! Can't get better than us!" Switzerland: "hold my beer" www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Very excited to announce *TWO* fully-funded PhD positions starting this summer focusing on greenhouse gases in the peatlands of the Congo Basin! Both positions are joint between my group in @eth-eaps.bsky.social and that of @johansix.bsky.social @usyseth.bsky.social. Come join us!

How and where does life originate in the universe? Three new National Centres of #Competence in #Research led by ETH Zurich and partner universities study life’s origins, precise measurement, and how Switzerland handles growing #ClimateExtremes.

🚨Paper alert!🚨 Very excited to finally see the thesis work of my ~first~ M.Sc. student published---and, to boot, it's in a special edition dedicated to the late, great Judy McKenzie! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Finally got my hands on @peterbrannen.bsky.social's (now not so new) book here in Europe. Excited to dive into Peter's (and some other friends') telling of Earth history!

Excellent opportunity for anybody looking to do a PhD on reverse weathering---Greg is an awesome person and great supervisor! Spread the word: jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...

⚒️ Article: Modern pyrite burial in seafloor sediments exceeds pyrite oxidation on land, indicating the sulphur cycle is out of balance and acts to increase atmospheric oxygen levels www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Interesting model-driven paper out of @jordonhemingway.bsky.social's group on the relative rates of pyrite burial and oxidation and how both relate to what's going on with organic carbon. 🧪⚒️

🚨 First #SEELab @eth-eaps.bsky.social PhD student-led paper is now officially online! We show that sedimentary conditions regulate formation rate and isotope composition of #pyrite, and that this process currently out-paces oxidation on land, leading to O2 accumulation www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Former long-time resident of Somerville, can confirm an over-abundance of rats

Respectfully, fuck off. (Also Office sucks.) www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/c...

Beate is the best! (And I hear Denmark is nice too)

Very grateful to the @snf-fns.ch for funding our continued work in DR Congo on tropical peatland greenhouse gas emissions! With @johansix.bsky.social and @draketw.bsky.social @eth-eaps.bsky.social @usyseth.bsky.social

Always happy to take the @eth-eaps.bsky.social (and a few @usyseth.bsky.social ) MSc students to Valais for some soil descriptions, pebble counts, and lake coring! Weather was rough yesterday but much perfect today!

Very cool write-up by @ethz.ch on our recent paper in @nature.com on reconstructing dissolved organic carbon in the ocean through geologic time! Led by Nir Galili @eth-eaps.bsky.social ethz.ch/en/news-and-...

I unapologetically and consistently use em dashes---with no spaces---in everything I write, from texts to scientific papers. Been doing it for years, and I won't stop because of ChatGPT www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/m...

🗞️ New article in Biogeosciences #EGU by Carolina F. M. de Carvalho et al. ⬇️

While Genossenschaften ("co-ops" in the article) are great, they are a low proportion of total housing and have extremely long wait lists and low turnover. Given how high rent is for the rest of us---and the frequency of demonstrations about the cost of living---id say no, we haven't solved it

Nice excerpt from @peterbrannen.bsky.social's new book in @theguardian.com! (with a cameo by the person who taught me everything I know about math, Dan Rothman) www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is my life in a nutshell. I apologize to everybody on behalf of America (or, "apologise" I should say) www.srf.ch/news/schweiz...

New @nature.com paper out "The geologic history of marine dissolved organic carbon from iron oxides" doi.org/10.1038/s415...

🚨 Paper alert! 🚨 After >1 year in review and six (6!) reviewers, I'm thrilled that this paper is finally out! Here, we provide the first data-based record of marine dissolved organic carbon in the geologic past. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Easy solution: freeze the billionaires' bank accounts. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/b...

🚨Job alert PhD 🚨 We are looking for 15 new doctoral researchers at @marumunibremen.bsky.social @unibremen.bsky.social. Don't miss this fantastic opportunity! The deadline is the 25th of July. More information about the projects and how to apply can be found here 👇 www.uni-bremen.de/en/universit...

"Want to solve climate change? Just bury your old wooden furniture in the backyard!" Sounds like snake oil. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The changing landscape of academic publishing: "In many countries, APCs are covered using research grants funded by national research agencies. As the demand for OA grows, ensuring fair and sustainable publishing models remains a critical issue." (1/2) journals.uu.se/AGC/article/...

Part of our team (@jordonhemingway.bsky.social, C. Fernandes, T. Nagakura, Z. Wang) went sampling in the #Bedretto tunnel this week, looking for #darkoxygen ! Thank you @isme-microbes.bsky.social for funding my participation in this expedition! @ethzurich.bsky.social @mblscience.bsky.social

🚨Paper alert 🚨 For anybody interested in measuring #oxygen #isotopes of #iron #oxides, here we describe a new high-precision, fluorine-free method! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Rock Identification xkcd.com/3068

"President Trump believes that all hiring should be based solely on merit" 🤔 www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

I am giving a talk on 'Tectonically controlled deep meteoric water circulation and CO2 degassing in the Himalayas' at @gfz.bsky.social on Wednesday at 13:00 in F409! It will be great to see you there if you are around!

One of the people fired from NOAA today is the director of the Ocean Acidification Program. That program also leads the U.S. government's effort on marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). The destruction of American science is incomprehensible.

Very happy to have played a (small) part in this excellent paper in @pnas.org by @lipidorama.bsky.social! Here, Felix et al. show the existence of a new type of quinone in N-cycling bacteria, with some big implications for aerobic metabolism timing vis-à-vis the GOE 🎉 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...