🚨 - Final - USGS 2025 Critical Minerals List • Posted to U.S. Fed Register 11/07/2025 • Notably adds: copper, silver, uranium, metallurgical coal, boron, + phosphate • Covers terrestrial + offshore 🌊🧪 [Links below]

🎬 Excited to share our expedition member’s hard work. - coming soon - (*AT50-38 expedition deliverables/ final report will be available to the Public shortly after the federal government reopens) 🌊🧪

Shout out to my NOAA + USAF Hurricane Hunter colleagues flying into #HurricaneMelissa. Watching Jamaica closely. Current stats via USAF-SFMR (10/28/2025 @ 0900): Cat 5; 180mph; 896mb Thank you for your public service- especially during the shutdown. Bravo Zulu! ✈️

Off on my next adventure 🛫 👋 Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween! Enjoy this year’s edition of: ~ Deep-Sea Spooky Season ~ 🌊🧪

I had the incredible privilege to visit the White House on Election Day (Nov 5) 2024. Looking back through my pictures from the historic East Wing:

Civil Servants Coalition complied a spreadsheet of programs + assistance during the shutdown (i.e., food, health, mortgages, loans). This week is the first pay period sans pay. Please reach out to your federal worker colleagues to make sure they’re ok. Even a quick “hello” helps 🌼

Just discovered the M.C. Escher museum offers guided tours for blind & visually impaired visitors (sells out quickly!). What a lovely opportunity to experience his tessellations and mind-bending buildings. *Math x Art = One of my fav artists 🧪 📍Escher in Het Paleis, Netherlands

ICYMI: My longest article ever for Scuba Diving Magazine answers one of the most frequent career advice quesions I receive... and the answer probably isn't what you think! Give it a read and share www.scubadiving.com/best-schools... 🦑🧪

🍂 Fall Outings. Finally hiked to the columnar basalt outcrops. Cooper-approved 🐾 Spectacular! Bonus: Park was packed, so I had an opportunity to discuss this outcrop w/ a group of enthusiastic hikers. 📍Compton Gap- #ShenandoahNationalPark, Virginia 🪨🧪

Plastic is everywhere. On today’s dive, the E/V Nautilus/ ROV Hercules encountered a crushed plastic bottle on the abyssal plain- in the remote Pacific (Cook Islands @ 5,198 meters). ♻️ I challenge everyone to swap at least one single-use plastic item. Small steps for more eco habits. 🌊🧪🌎

🔔 DIVE HAPPENING NOW My colleagues (👋 Amanda!) are narrating this gorgeous dive in the Cook Islands abyssal plains. Forbidden truffles 🪨🪨🪨 Link below to watch livestream 🧪🌊

Bit of good news this morning. Minor revision request for our new manuscript examining presence/ extent of the Barents Sea Ice Sheet during past glacial maxima 🧊🪨🌊 Unlocking Arctic paleoclimate! Grateful for thoughtful Reviewer feedback. (unrelated to current furl'd position- PhD continuation)

The news is starting to roll-in from today’s NASA-JPL terminations. Sending the biggest virtual hugs to my extended JPL Family 🩵🥺

Absolutely heartbroken for my NASA-JPL colleagues. Tomorrow is going to be a challenging day 💔 [JPL Peeps- y’all know how to directly reach me. PLEASE reach out if you need anything. Love you Guys!!!]

Nor’easter inbound. Obviously that meant recon time. Here’s a quick clip from Virginia today. #VAWx

Trying my best to mimic Vostok δ¹⁸O data. If you squint hard enough, you can see that pesky MIS 4 rearing its face.

Tiny shoutout to my fellow grad student @ocnogrphr.bsky.social! He’s returning to our Alma mater as part of our dept’s lecture series- as a seasoned postdoc! Hey Ryan- don’t forget to swing by Borjo ☕️ Enjoy your visit to ODU!

🔔 Meeting Announcement Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG)- virtual/ Nov 12, 2025 ℹ️ www.lpi.usra.edu/mepag/meetin... #PlanetarySci 🧪

Recently visited a farm that left me speechless. I walked around the property whispering, “this can’t be real.” It was magical- filled with animals and happiness! 📍High Meadow Manor, Flint Hill, VA

A paper in Nature Communications identifies 85 previously undocumented lakes beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. These subglacial lakes fill and drain with a variety of patterns, revealing interconnected hydrological pathways channeling large volumes of water under the ice sheet. ⚒️ 🧪

Did you know that there are blueberries on Mars? And they're made of #Hematite? Very cool, but definitely don't eat them. eos.org/research-spo...

H E M A T I T E !!! #MinCup25

Had the pleasure of sailing with Mark "Drago" Dragovich on the R/V Atlantis transit from San Diego, CA to Dutch Harbor, AK. 🌊 Drago was a STEMSEAS Student and an absolute rockstar. Thrilled to watch his post-military career in ocean and Great Lakes sciences flourish! Please check out his recap ⤵️

Just a few more days until the next expedition. USGS & NOAA colleagues are exploring the Cook Islands. (I’ll be serving as an Ashore Scientist). Manuia te tere! Deep-Sea Habitats of the Cook Islands | 1- 21 October, 2025 🌊🧪

I'm absolutely THRILLED to hear my Mars colleague, Dr. Lauren Edgar was selected for the 2025 ASCAN Class. She will be an unbelievable addition to the Astronaut Corps- representing our Mars geology community well- and joining our current Mars geology NASA Astronaut, Dr. Jessica Watkins. AD ASTRA 💫

STARTING NOW!!! I'll be standing by to share any insights as the candidates are announced.

One more wake up! Can’t wait to find out who was selected for the 2025 NASA Astronaut Candidate #ASCAN Class. Unfortunately I have conflicting meetings, so I’ll watch on a delay. Hope we hear some familiar names 🧇🚀

Free film showing, Climate change and Greenland's melting ice. University of Vermont, Sept 21, 5 pm. More info here: events.uvm.edu/event/the-me... ❄️🧪💙📚 #scicomm #climate #UVMresearch #science  🌎 🔬 ⚒️ #geosky #ClimateHealth #ClimateAction

#Hematite is up again. Let's goooo my fav lil' BIFy mineral & Martian dust! #MinCup25

Great film @fieseler.bsky.social! It was a nice surprise to see some of my deep-sea colleagues & OSM24 featured here 🌊🧪

I can’t believe I caught this 🦋 Just before noon, I figured I better check again… the hangar bay was opening! Little out of focus for a few seconds, but I got the focus back- apologies- I was so excited & shooting w/ the sun on my viewer.

Good Morning 🌎 It’s almost time to come out of the hangar & go wheels up 🦋

Here is the paper published by @nature.com with an accompanying News and Views article 🧪🔭 Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars ☑️ www.nature.com/articles/s41... ☑️ www.nature.com/articles/d41...

HERE WE GO! Live now.

My NOAA colleague just sent pics of a sparkly, fresh R/V Ron Brown (finishing midlife). For comparison: Found a 2018 pic of us doing “grad student things”. Totally normal. 😅 < I 💙 being out to sea! > 🌊

My Wisconsinite-to-Oceanographer roots are starting to make sense. Not only was the R/V Endeavor constructed there, but Alvin's titanium sphere was forged by Ladish Forging in Cudahy, WI. I mean- standing at the shore- Lake Michigan and Superior do "seem" like oceans. 🧀⛴️

Excited to hear the announcement for Percy's "Sapphire Canyon" sample (shout out Dr. Katie Stack Morgan 🚀):

🚨Webinar Reminder~ Happening Tomorrow (deep-🌊)🧪 < Hope to see some of you online > Ecology and ecosystem services of inactive hydrothermal vent deposits Dr. Jason Sylvan (Texas A&M University) & Dr. Amanda Achberger (Louisiana State University)

HECK YEAH #TeamHematite!!! Great job Everyone! Even if Hematite falls out in the next round, you’ve made this Fe-oxide Gal smile 🥰 Happy Sunday 🧲⚡️ #MinCup25

VOTE HEMATITE! #MinCup25 As an Fe-oxide researcher, I’m excited to advocate for this 🧲 mineral. Here we go: 🟥 Banded Iron Formations 🫐 Mars dust + “blueberry” spherules 🧲 Magnetic (helpful for easy separation!) 🎨 Ancient pigments & those awesome 80s/90s necklaces (you KNOW you had them!)

Found this dive knife on a Divemaster cert dive in 1999 off Bonaire. It’s been sitting in a makeshift sheath for- gasp- 26 years 🫠 Also found these random”Shannon doodle gems” in my old dive log.

🌊 OPPORTUNITY COBRA’s Early Career Deep-Sea Expedition Leadership course. Applications close Sep 18, 2025 ⤵️ [Bigelow- Lab for Ocean Sciences | Crustal Ocean Biosphere Research Accelerator (COBRA)]

🌊With the Fall semester upon us, it's time to start thinking about recruiting/applying to grad school for 2026. If you are a marine scientist looking for a graduate student, I've created a form where you can add your name and other info: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Please share widely! (1/2)

IT IS HAPPENING!!! I’ve been spent the past few years cultivating native plants around my property. The ecosystem responded 🥹 I’m up to: deer, foxes, increased bees/ butterflies/ insects, frogs, turtles, bats, rabbits, & hummingbirds/ increased songbirds (& raptors/owls). No black bears- yet.

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.

HEMATITIE!!! Let's GOOO Fe-oxides 🖤

🌊🧪On our Aleutians expedition, a 0300 onboard message got everyone out of their racks. We unintentionally mapped a MASSIVE landslide along a ridge line. Sent the initial data to USGS onshore SMEs- They were EXCITED. So, we backtracked a few kms to collect a suite of data. Here’s the product:

🌊 --> 🪨 I'll translate these into "Geologist": (clockwise from top left) - Pumpkin-spice squishy star (extrusive igneous) - Armored pinchy hands (metamorphic) - Tiny windsocks (extrusive igneous) - Squishy w/ curls (*not calcite or halite; do NOT lick)

During my last move, I went from ~2.5Myr coastal plain sediments to >600Myr metaseds. Great job on these map products, USGS 💚

A geo oceanographer discovers #InvertFest… I had a lovely conversation with this sleek predator yesterday.