I just blocked all emails from MDPI journals in my email app. They are relentless. They are the worst.

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵

The perplexing (to me, anyway) phenomenon of laminated loess deposits (Bignell Hill, Nebraska)

A new study argues that in the past, Cascadia quakes have triggered the San Andreas to go off, and that it could happen again. But other experts, while recognizing that may technically be possible, want more evidence. Read more at NatGeo: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

I was recently interviewed by @drlauraguertin.bsky.social as part of her 'Tales from the Deep' series focused on the people involved in scientific ocean drilling ⚒️🧪⛴️ –– lots of great stories from many others there to check out archive.storycorps.org/interviews/i...

Today was a good day. #nokings protest, Austin, Texas

It can not be exaggerated just how wild the climate of the Pleistocene was in which we evolved. All of recorded history is in pixel at the very top of the very last zigzag, all the way to the right of this graph. From a new paper on sea level over past 4.5 million yrs www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Next week at the #GSA2025, I'll be presenting my newly developed Python tool, 𝒑𝒚𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒆𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓. We apply it to quantitatively re-examine the correlatability of Cascadia deep-water turbidites, previously interpreted as synchronous deposits of paleo-earthquakes. Abstract: lnkd.in/gJ_KHH2j

Headed out into the field. Josh printed out 3D maps of the region for reference. ⚒️

Did you know that sand records its transport history as it moves across Earth's surface? We developed a new tool to investigate billion-year-old rocks by looking at microscopic features on zircon sand grains. Check out our new paper in @geosociety.bsky.social to see how! doi.org/10.1130/G537...

It was a pleasure to contribute to this article, which talks about how AI contributes to seismology - indeed, we have seen tremendous progress in the use of machine learning to detect small events. 1/

An excellent response by MIT’s President Sally Kornbluf rejecting the Trump compact. Other universities should do the same.

It's not a big deal but I find it annoying when I am told to use only one slide (or three, whatever) when giving a short talk. I am old enough to figure out how to use visuals in a limited amount of time; let me decide if I want to use fifty slides or none

ah the leaves are turning and the men are giving each other prizes again the first whispers of winter

It appears that my employer, Dartmouth, one of the Trump 9, has said no to the compact. All the better given that our president is cited within it. But she’s saying no. Count the small victories when they come.

🚨FOUR tenure track positions in my dept @ucalgary.bsky.social @ucalgaryscience.bsky.social in applied & computational geophysics, subsurface geochemistry, sedimentary geology, and sustainable soil science. careers.ucalgary.ca/search/jobs?... (please reskeet widely!) #academicsky 🧪⚒️🇨🇦

“It trades autonomy for subservience, academic freedom for censorship, gender science and history for ideology, and the best interests of UT students and faculty for the favor of an administration intent on destroying our university.” www.texastribune.org/2025/10/02/u...

This is so, so horrible. Who are these unaccountable government agents? What gives them the right to abuse people this way? Where is due process? I weep for these poor children, and I weep for the nation that condones this abominable treatment. This behavior is sadistic.

its this part "If universities sign and then violate the terms of the compact, they could be forced to return any money given to them by the federal government that year as well as any private contributions." 👀 Stay in line OR ELSE

I also like to use some of their examples from previous underwater experiments (Reffet et al., 2010; doi.org/10.1130/G308...) to show how acute and obtuse diverging winds result in different dune types (inspired by @agunn.bsky.social 's Sharp Lecture last year):

@txgeosciences.bsky.social QCL Clastics Lab at Tusher Canyon, north of Green River, UT. Origin & architecture of channels incising parasequences.

When the dust will clear up...💨 Preparation of Morteratsch Glacier samples (Little Ice age, 1st two), Fee Glacier (Roman Period) and Mer de Glace (Bronze Age) today! 🤩🌲💍

Great example of a flood produced by the end-of-monsoon-season rainstorm on an ephemeral desert stream with a drainage area of 1817 square miles. A bit west of Phoenix.

I've been asked a few times over the last few days what I think the chances are that the "leopard spots and poppy seeds" on Mars will turn out to be actual evidence of life. People are naturally skeptical given the history of possible signs of life on other planets. Strap in: long thread ahead...

Great explanation (and illustration) of Rubin and Hunter's work. Dave Loope impressed the importance of this on me, and it was the basis for our paper on longitudinal dunes in the Nebraska Sandhills: doi.org/10.1126/scie.... See Figure 2 in particular. In the supplemental material, included in this

A thread about how two geologists went to a beach with a plywood board and a protractor to see how variable wind directions influence bedform orientation - and published a paper in Science that blew my mind. 🧪⚒️🧵 1/23

Great piece by @jonathanjarry.bsky.social on the descent of Sabine Hossenfelder, from science communicator to contrarian outrage-monger www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/...

Last week I was co-leading a field trip in Utah, to check out some fluvial and eolian rocks. It was exhausting but fun and forced me to think more carefully than before about complex bedforms. This is a 3D model of one of the many stunning exposures of the Navajo Sandstone near Escalante 🧪⚒️

Kudos to Google Deep Mind AI. This graphic is from Sept 25 when most models were showing a landfall of #Imelda in NC/SC. Google AI has consistently been showing a hard right turn. There were a couple of runs where it was closer to the coast, but overall the theme from Google AI was “out to sea” 1/

Yokonami melange, a paleo-megathrust, and so, so much chert, near Kure, Shikoku Island, Japan

This is an absolutely terrific piece from @texastribune.org and reinforces my belief that the best coverage of right-wing cancelations occur at the local level, after years of the national media focusing on threats from the left. www.texastribune.org/2025/09/19/t...

Why is this horrible for Universities? Just about everyone who isn't a citizen or green card holder already who's hired for a tenure track faculty position is hired through an H1B and then, after 3-5 years, applies for a green card. This is literally "No more foreign professors can be hired"

Random old screenshot of a meandering river model, built with 'meanderpy' (github.com/zsylvester/m...) 🧪⚒️

Teaching data science, data visualization, or programming is getting quite challenging when LLMs are so good at these tasks. I strongly feel students still need to do things themselves. But how do we make them do this, and not just take the AI shortcut? blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/teaching-d...

📣📣 Call For Donations! 💰💰 I am raising funds to finance the 2025 'glacier subfossil wood' field campaign! Do you want to continue hearing tales about glaciers and trees? 🧊🌲💍 I need your help! 🤍 To learn more: wemakeit.com/projects/gla... 🙏🙏 Please share it widely! 🙏🙏

Stephen Jay Gould was born OTD in 1941. “Organisms are not billiard balls, propelled by simple and measurable external forces to predictable new positions on life's pool table.... Organisms have a history that constrains their future in myriad, subtle ways.” 🦫🦋🐋🌱🧠🗃️🧪#HistSTM #PhilSci #EvoBio

We Have AI Now www.youtube.com/shorts/8-lgJ...

Yuval Noah Harari must be one of the most overrated and most annoying historians / philosophers / AI experts ever. This is all either plain wrong or not new at all www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Ov...

It pains me to say this, but it’s only thanks to AI-enhanced tools that I was able to finish Python-wrapping some physics C++ code in just 2 days, despite having very rusty C++ skills. VSCode prompts are uncanny in their anticipation, and Google’s AI-boosted search is sadly often better than SO 😢 🧪🧮

Highlighting the grain flow and grain fall deposits in the preserved lower part of a Jurassic dune, Navajo Sandstone, Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument, Utah 🧪⚒️

Cool time lapse animations on the NASA Earth Observatory site of the rapidly (crazy rapidly!) shifting channels of the Yarlung Zangbo River

The Department of Energy hired five academics to raise doubts about climate change. 85+ climate experts (organized by @andrewdessler.com) reviewed their report. Our conclusion, detailed in 450 pages of analysis: it is biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policy making.

eBook Preview Statistical Physics of Rarefied Sediment Particle Motions and Transport: Applications to Hillslopes and Rivers Posting this preview of material from my next (unfinished) book might be a mistake. But eh… what the hell. 1/n cdn.vanderbilt.edu/t2-my/my-prd...

Nice documentary on the history of Python (the programming language) - great to see how a male-dominated tech community made a successful effort to become more diverse and inclusive youtu.be/GfH4QL4VqJ0?...

Plants change how river bends move - paper by PhD student Michael Hasson out as First Release in #Science!! Paper: doi.org/10.1126/scie... Before #plants, #meanders did not grow laterally as much but translated downstream, making them look like braided rivers in rocks. @stanforddoerr.bsky.social

Grok showed up in my Tesla this morning, and started speaking to me without me trying to trigger it. I saw a tab called "conspiracy theories", clicked it and asked Grok about climate change. This is what Elon Musk is telling Tesla drivers about climate change.

My NASA contract will expire soon and it won't be renewed. But I'm much more heartbroken for the gutting of the entire agency. I just can't believe it's come to this. Everything seems to be dissolving - people leaving, projects stalled, meetings cancelled, email empty. It's surreal and awful.

In one week my book about carbon comes out, and here's some nice things some nice people have said about it. If you feel moved to do so, the link below provides a means of purchase. Thank you, that is all. www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

LinkedIn is starting to get “legit social media site” vibes in the worst possible ways. Reply guys, climate change deniers, earthquake predictors, mansplainers, lonely hearts…. Ugh. And it’s not even entertaining.