ICE OUT NOW

I am impeaching Secretary Kristi Noem, who is an incompetent leader and a disgrace to our democracy. She wreaked havoc in the Chicagoland area and has brought her reign of terror to Minneapolis. One of her rogue ICE agents shot and killed an innocent woman today. It must come to an end.

Hey #SciSky: Any advice for a new PI on how to manage his first multi-user lab facility? Any pitfalls I should be aware? Context: We are opening a brand new Raman spectrscopy lab (NSF-funded). The lab is located in a communal space, and the users will be undergrads and fellow geo faculty. ⚒️🧪

Ran down the original source for all this and related claims about "humanities subsidizing STEM" here:

New paper alert! tl;dr: the seafloor of Europa is probably tectonically inert, meaning little to no active fracturing that could expose fresh rock to seawater. Without such water–rock reactions the prospect for there being life within Europa just took a big hit. A thread:

ok who gave The Onion my phd thesis

This is essentially Wawa’s business model but more car-centric

Mercator strikes again

El Chaltén - day 4 7/9 #patagonia #elchalten #nature #hiking #photography

I am heartened by all the posts from fellow educators today lamentng how behind they are on emails/semester prep. I feel seen!

this store is 18+ and they’re strict as hell about it. none of this has ever been about “protecting children,” it’s about trying to force trans people to disappear

Happy New Year! MSA is delighted to announce the 2026 Awardees. They are: Roebling Medal: Tetsuo Irifune, Ehime University, Matsuyama, Japan Dana Medal: Clara Chan, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA MSA Award: Suzette Timmerman, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

First Mineral Monday of the new year!! I love the natural artistry of this scolecite (a mineral in the zeolite group). The careful balance of the three crystal clusters is gorgeous!! #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Could everyone that said Philly should start McKee please form an orderly queue? I will be accepting your apologies on behalf of Jalen Hurts one at a time.

Found this courtesy of WHOI...who've been trying to get an under-ice vehicle going for a decade+. I am 0% surprised we didn't get to this section of the Gakkel ridge first.

Not the central point, but scientists should also say what Trump and Vought are doing to US science is illegal — illegal grant terminations, illegal mass firings, illegal remaking of science agencies without Congressional approval … Vought’s entire approach to science and universities is corrupt.

More people need to understand that there’s more to it than poke hole in ground, get oil. Costs to upgrade rigs, costs for drilling, how it has to be refined, where you do the refining, cost to train people, time to get everything going, etc. In the end, are you even making a profit?

The president unilaterally decided to attack a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader, and now he says he's just going to run that county himself for a while too. Call your representatives now and demand they impeach him.

my plan to get this country back on track consists of one bullet point: i propose we stop pretending stupid people arent stupid just because theyre loud and theres a lot of them

You do not need to be a fan of Maduro to think that this is both morally abhorrent and world-historically fucking stupid.

Successfully submitting an expense reimbursement through Workday, the X The Everything App of University Software Systems

So much this. Same problem with academic leadership.

Capping off the year with yet another prehistoric map: Australia during the Pleistocene ice age, an ancient land of bizarre Megafauna, as seen in the most recent season of Prehistoric Planet. See you all in 2026, happy new year! : ) #Maps #Geology #Sci-art #sciart #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge #GIS

If AAUP's 2025 can be summed up in a phrase, it would be: Organize, Fight, Win! We will remember 2025 as a year of membership growth, mass actions against Trump's loyalty oath compact & major legal victories for the AAUP. We invite you to organize, fight, and win with us in 2026!

Great title, and the text doesn't hold back either in this 1973 congressional report criticizing the Corps of Engineers and Soil Conservation Service for promoting stream channelization (straightening, basically) which often leads to rapid incision and an array of other negative impacts.

The U.S. NSF has announced changes to its highly regarded system of reviewing the some 50,000 grant proposals received each year. The move has created uncertainty and anxiety across the U.S. scientific community. Here are five things to know about the changes. ⬇️ https://scim.ag/4aCoSZQ

Hey can someone please write book a la a guns germs and steel but about geological energy resources, paleogeography, and the rise of the industrial world powers? I want to read this but I don’t think it exists.

My wife & son provide a sense of scale to the fault scarp (in shadow) of the M~7.5 1872 Lone Pine earthquake. In a few seconds that horrible night, the ground where the shadow stops dropped suddenly away from the ground where my family is standing, a throw of ~22 feet. ⚒️

Merry Christmas from Etna! 🌋🎄 Strombolian activity is ongoing at the Northeast Crater, with glowing ejecta and a small plume drifting NE. Minor ashfall in Piano Provenzana and Taormina. #Etna #INGV

Has AI *really* been a leap forward in science? I don't think so. Aside from traditional computational methods — which are now being branded as “AI” by marketing folks — generative AI like ChatGPT really hasn't done much for science and medicine, despite the hype. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/p...

And to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, and will return in Avengers: Doomsday

An early Christmas present for all petrologists! Looking forward to reading this over a cup of mulled wine 🍷

Time to start a bluesky Christmas fight: Most over-rated and under-rated cuisine? For me: Over-rated: French Under-rated (globally): Mexican Under-rated (US specifically): Indonesian

You managed to escape then …yes, there are lots of beautiful granite/diorites and other igneous rocks on that stretch of the beach 🔽

For #MineralMonday, the vanishingly rare and delightfully named* clinojimthomsponite. A very weird triple-chain silicate from Achmelvich, Sutherland. *named for James Thompson, but there was already a thomsonite, so they called it jimthompsonite, and this is the monoclinic polymorph

I'm looking for the perfect illustration of a mantle plume for a book I'm working on. Started with a web search and couldn't find exactly what I wanted. So I gave Chatgpt a go. Wow.

From @AGU.org: Senators are working on legislation to save NCAR, but we need extra support for these 8 states. Your Senators in Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, and Wyoming need to hear from you.

Early Jurassic - planet reconstruction (184 - 183 MYA) Another full world project that has been in the background for several months! See high-res images on my portfolio site below basaltweaver.myportfolio.com/jurassic Otherwise, here's a thread #sciart #paleoart #GIS #mapmaking #maps #geology

I just wish someone would be honest and say “we are ending civilian science in favor of science that is focused on serving national security and war”

Was wearing a flyers jersey, sweatpants, and Santa hat at pre-school pickup today. The dozen little ones waiting for their parents kept whispering to each other and staring at me. Then they all shouted “YOU’RE SANTA!” despite my vigorous objections, they concluded I must at least be his helper.

There was a press conference: www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Re...

Action alert: UVA's board is meeting today and reportedly intends to name a new president, despite calls to pause the search until a fair process can be put into place. Students, UVA workers, union members, concerned community--please come out & tell the BoV to stop the search.

These stores are all false. The academic hiring process does not work like any of these people are saying. The Dean does not tell applicants why they weren't hired. Conversations with candidates about "the real reasons" are fantasies. These are all lies by people who want to start a race panice.

This is timely, fascinating science. I hope someone at #agu25 is able to highlight these findings! @aguvgp.bsky.social

A massive new report by over 100 scientists modeling the climate effects of the 2022 Hunga volcanic eruption finds "The record-high global surface temperatures in 2023/2024 were not due to the Hunga eruption": juser.fz-juelich.de/...

Lots of great 🌋VGP🌋 science slated for Thursday, December 18th at #AGU25! From the evolution of transcrustal magma plumbing systems to advancements in experimental & analytical techniques, you won't want to miss our diverse oral & poster sessions! #volcanology #geochemistry #petrology #agu #vgp

At 20 miles, it’s “look at that.” At 14 miles, it’s “it’s coming over the ridge.” Mike Moore, camping by the Green River near Independence Mine with his family, raised his camera and kept shooting — 12 quick frames — as the cloud rolled in and swallowed the view. The four Moores would survive.

Today’s the #AGU25 day! @colgate.edu undergrad Rylie Berwanger ‘26 presents a model for the origin of banded pumice at Augustine Volcano. Poster V31C-0072.

the sort of canonical raison d’être of NSF funding, of course, is that it supports research efforts that do not appeal to the venture capital/industry/near-term profit-motivated set,

Leaving NOLA for an early departure from #AGU25. I feel so lucky to work with amazingly kind and generous people from all over the world. I am particularly inspired by passion and creativity of the students I met. Certainly feel like my hope in the future has been rekindled 🌋