Researchers say the ancient breakup of tectonic plates creates churning waves in Earth’s mantle that tumble in slow motion under the continents for tens of millions of years, sculpting topography deep within continental interiors. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4s8GTEs #ScienceMagArchives

Our planet’s average temperature plummeted between 717 and 658 million years ago, causing a worldwide ice age dubbed Snowball Earth. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/snowball-earth-dynamic-open-seas

"Snowball Earth might have had a dynamic climate and open seas": a nice article about our new study led by the amazing @cgrifgeo.bsky.social, just published in @scinews.bsky.social www.sciencenews.org/article/snow... @unisouthampton.bsky.social

Slightly late to the party, but here's a link to access our new open access paper reporting "Interannual to multidecadal climate oscillations occurred during Cryogenian glaciation" led by the amazing @cgrifgeo.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Hundreds of millions of years ago our planet was frozen, in a state called Snowball Earth. Researchers here at Southampton have examined how the climate would have fluctuated. Read more: https://tr.pulse.ly/si1ggtin1u @gernon.bsky.social | @cgrifgeo.bsky.social | @sotonoceanearth.bsky.social

Model simulation of the #MPWP glacial-deglacial switching (more than 5 deep retreats to #EllsworthMountains province) is breathtaking in this animation by ARHalberstadt : youtu.be/uu2vlzrP2vk

Congratulations to Professor John Marshall on his Polar Medal, recognising his decades of research in the harsh polar regions. Awarded by His Majesty King Charles III to those who have made outstanding achievements in polar research. Find out more: www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2026/01...

“To shutter this facility is, frankly, a national security risk,” Kim Cobb told @bloomberg.com about NCAR, given its cutting-edge work on extreme weather and across fields including machine learning and AI. Story w/ @eroston.bsky.social @willwwade.bsky.social: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

Continental rifting erodes mantle roots, transporting enriched material into oceans and driving oceanic volcanism. A study in Nature Geoscience shows that continental break-up reorganizes shallow mantle dynamics, affecting the geosphere and carbon cycle. go.nature.com/3XjAk4G ⚒️ 🧪

⚒️ Article: Convective erosion and lateral transport of metasomatized continental keels may generate enriched mantle geochemical domains @gernon.bsky.social @unisouthampton.bsky.social @ukiodp.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Siccar Point is one of the most important geoheritage sites in the world; we think visitors deserve to hear why. Help us install a Deep Time Trail - donate to the Crowdfunder now. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/siccar-point youtu.be/OeHsVJiO9gE

This whole section really.

Out yesterday in @nature.com our study led by @gidden.bsky.social on how much carbon we can store in sedimentary basins. Key takeaways, (1) this is a limited resource, (2) most optimistically will limit global warming by 0.7°, (3) so let’s not waist it, but use it wisely.

New ideas published in @geosociety.bsky.social Geology that the Northern Appalachian anomaly beneath the Eastern US is a migrating small-scale convection cell originating from past rifting of the Labrador Sea @gernon.bsky.social @sasbrune.bsky.social pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/...

Congrats to Rhiannon Rees on publication of her trace element study from Ayelu, Abida and Gabilema volcanoes in the Ethiopian rift www.frontiersin.org/journals/ear... @sorcerinsar.bsky.social @gernon.bsky.social @wattsvolcanology.bsky.social

NERC: We need to open up environmental science! Why is it not diverse? Also NERC: We're scrapping Independent Research Fellowships, New Investigator Grants, Small Grants, are limiting applications from institutions based on past success rates and will only allow you to submit your proposal once.

At last we are delighted to share with you this year's LIVE Hobby nest camera from a site within the Forestry England South Forest District. To view the live stream visit our website blog and click on the image. Enjoy! drsg.co.uk/f/fabulous-f... @dorsetbirdclub.bsky.social @harbourbirds.bsky.social

The mantle upwelling beneath the Afar rift may be influenced by tectonic processes in the overriding lithospheric plates that shape the distribution of both compositional heterogeneties and abundance of melt, according to a paper in Nature Geoscience. 🧪

Our scientists have discovered deep Earth pulses beneath Africa that are slowly, over millions of years, tearing the continent apart and forming a new ocean 🌊 Read more 👉‬ https://tr.ee/Rj8ooV

⚒️ Article: Mantle upwelling beneath the Afar rift may be influenced by tectonic processes in the overriding lithospheric plates @wattsvolcanology.bsky.social @derekkeir.bsky.social ‬ @gernon.bsky.social @unisouthampton.bsky.social @swanseavolctephra.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Delighted to see Emma Watts' cool new Nature Geoscience study (with myself, @derekkeir.bsky.social and others) on the Afar plume featured so prominently in @thetimes.com today: www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a... @unisouthampton.bsky.social @sotonoceanearth.bsky.social

for a nice summary of the work on the pulsing Afar plume by @wattsvolcanology.bsky.social see this article in @newsweek.com www.newsweek.com/geology-plat... @gernon.bsky.social @sorcerinsar.bsky.social

New paper alert🚨 In this new article in @natgeosci.nature.com we use a multidisciplinary approach (geochemistry, geophysics and mathematically modelling) to see pulsing in the mantle plume beneath Afar and how the flow varies along the rift See the 🧵 below: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In this new paper in @natgeosci.nature.com by @wattsvolcanology.bsky.social, she uses analysis of seismic and geochemical data to see pulsing of a mantle plume and how it flows along the rift @wattsvolcanology.bsky.social @sorcerinsar.bsky.social @gernon.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

„De geologie kampt tegenwoordig met de hardnekkige maar foutieve aanname dat er niets nieuws meer te ontdekken valt." @gernon.bsky.social @gemmavenhuizen.bsky.social @nrcwetenschap.bsky.social #geologie www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

For nearly 15 years the US Dept of Interior's Climate Adaptation* Science Centers have supported hundreds of scientists studying how ecosystems respond to climate change & pollution, invasive species, sustainable wildlife & wild lands management, and more. Now the admin wants to cancel them all.

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️24th April 2025, 16:00 UTC🗓️ Next week’s talk is from Dr Richard Stockey @richardstockey.bsky.social from University of Southampton, on “Modelling ancient animal habitats in space and time: linking fossils and Earth system models” Register here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...

BREAKING from @science.org: The Trump admin is seeking to kill nearly all climate research at NOAA, its climate science agency. Its near-final budget proposal would end all NOAA research labs, academic institutes, and regional climate centers. And it wants to fully end the NOAA Research division.

These huge proposed cuts to the NASA budget would cancel all but two astrophysics missions, kill spacecraft going to Mars & Venus, close NASA Goddard, and much more. They would devastate space science, not just in the US but globally. 🔭🧪 arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

@science.org confirms that yesterday the Trump admin wiped out the technical staff of the U.S. National Climate Assessment and the Global Change Research Program. When USGCRP's acting director, who is on a time-limited contract, leaves, it will leave the congressionally mandated office empty.

This is a great @nytimes.com article - highly relevant to science funding bodies and grant appraisal processes in other countries like the UK: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/o...

My latest from LPSC last week: For years, estimates of when the Moon formed have jumped back and forth by tens of millions of years. But a consensus is now forming that it is very old indeed -- and has been Earth's partner for nearly its whole history.

"The Phanerozoic has experienced two major icehouse periods, the late Paleozoic and late Cenozoic (our current geologic era). The new model was able to reproduce both of those icehouses, as well as periods of warming in between" ⚒️🧪 eos.org/articles/how...

NASA has closed its chief science office, its technology/policy/strategy office, and the DEI branch of its equal opportunity office. 23 people have been fired, per a HQ spokesperson.

Hey @gernon.bsky.social your St Monans board is still looking great!

The dismantling of NOAA is the dismantling of the United States www.axios.com/2025/03/03/d...

Outlook in 5 characters 😶

Nice to see @gernon.bsky.social 's mantle eddies get a good write up in @economist.com ⚒️👇 www.economist.com/science-and-...

Over its multimillion-year history, multiple planetary cooling mechanisms working together were required to push Earth into 'icehouse' conditions and to form ice caps. See our new paper on this here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

One impact of the NSF freeze: They fund the small nonprofit, EarthScope, that manages seismic and GPS stations used worldwide to detect and warn of earthquakes and navigate autonomous vehicles. EarthScope can maybe make payroll this week. A prolonged freeze could see stations fail.

Earth, climate, and planetary scientists: If you have an expected upcoming NASA/NSF/NOAA/DOE grant payment in the next couple weeks that, if not received, will have a real impact on your lab and staff, please let us know about it @science.org. You can reach me at [email protected].

Welcome to colleague Derek Keir @derekkeir.bsky.social to @bsky.app -- well worth a follow for #tectonics, #geology and #geophysics - pls add him to any relevant lists you administer!

Other than us (see right panel), what causes the fastest increases in CO₂ and the strangest bumps in CH₄ in the ice core record (see left panel)? @benryoung.bsky.social's new paper may have the answer and it's literally 🔥. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇

New paper on glacial erosion rates and the Sadler effect that came out of a @dartmouthears.bsky.social grad seminar class just out now in Sci Adv! doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Latest from #AGU24: That reduced cloud cover that contributed to 2023 and 2024's record temps? It could be part of a worrying long-term trend of cloud loss, now spotted in observations over the past two decades. *If* this is a feedback to global warming, it is stronger than anticipated. A big if!

Honoured and humbled that our discovery of mantle waves is one of the runners-up for the @science.org Breakthrough of the Year, 2024. See the feature, "Mantle waves sculpt the continents": www.science.org/content/arti...

Congrats to @gernon.bsky.social and his coauthors for their runner-up Breakthrough of the Year @science.org, showing how waves in the mantle, created by continental rifting, sculpt the interiors of continents. #AGU24 Direct link to their entry: www.science.org/content/arti...

Honoured and humbled that our discovery of mantle waves is one of the runners-up for the @Science Breakthrough of the Year, 2024. See the feature, "Mantle waves sculpt the continents": www.science.org/content/arti...